Is this enough qualitative spiritual research?

Is it any different than the argument that most people have against God?

Great impersonations by the way.

And for me, at this moment, that is what I want for so many of my friends. I want them to become so discontent with this life that they cannot go on without God rescuing them. I want them to physically experience the God of Love.

I lost friends, and went through that no-man’s land that so many people experience. It’s the place in between the old and new, where you are still the old you on the outside but the new you is bursting at the seams, trying to get out.

That was my second God encounter. It was a physical experience where I finally felt accepted by God. Maybe I should have felt accepted when I “accepted Jesus” at Super Summer, or maybe I should have convinced myself I was accepted when I was baptized. But for the first time, religion wasn’t a thought or concept to believe; it was tangible. God was tangible. He was real and alive and interactive. He let me know in a way that I understood that He accepted me. He loved me when I was a complete loser and ass.

It wasn’t that very moment, but shortly afterward I resigned to just be bad. My new spiritual math was simple:

God hates sinners + I can’t stop sinning + Bible is confusing = Have fun sinning + then Hell forever

This is a 2 part series.  Part 1 was written 2 years ago, and Part 2 almost a year and half afterwards … it will soon follow. Last week I flew with my boss and a few anthropologists to Kodiak Island, here inAlaska.  Our team’s intention was to invite key community leaders into a new [...]

Several centuries ago, the Pope decreed that all Jews had to convert to Catholicism or leave Italy. There was a huge outcry from the Jewish community, so the Pope offered a deal: he’d have a religious debate with their leader. If the Jews won, they could stay in Italy; if the Pope won, they’d have to convert or leave.

Behind closed doors, in jokes and song lyrics, in the absurdly common parts of Christian culture, a slight hum and buzz reverberates. It’s the quiet implication that a massive change is coming. In Hum and Buzz, church planters Toby and Ellen Stevens clarify what is happening that is challenging traditional church and Christianity as we know it. Hum and Buzz illustrates how in the gritty, vulnerable exploration of the abundant life Jesus promised, a new kind of Church and Christianity is blooming everywhere.

Today, and especially in our eclectic culture, we all have different backgrounds that handle depression differently … everything from “Just pray or sacrifice more!” to a strict diet of teas made from ginkgo and sea-turtle ovaries. It seems everybody has an idea on how to treat it on some level, but I really want to know what gets this dark snowball rolling in the first place.

When I see someone come alive, I suddenly recognize they are beautiful. It’s the way they were created to be. When a person loses themselves in that one thing that fuels them like nothing else can, I suddenly want to inspire others too. It is a contagious hope, of sorts.