Yesterday at The Refuge’s Sunday night gathering we had some cupcakes and sang happy 11th birthday to The Refuge. It’s hard for me to believe it’s been 11 years. When it started I was just wrapping up my 30’s and now, in 3 weeks, I will be turning 50 years old (more on that soon, […]
Read Morei first started going to church on a regular basis when i was in high school. my boyfriend’s family became born-again christians while we were dating and i went with them. i loved it. the inspiration, the music, the challenge. it didn’t change everything for me but it opened me up to a world that […]
Read Moreit was nice to have a little blog break, and when i get a little space and time i always end up back at some of the same questions-about-life like “why do i still care so much about ‘church’“? “why do i pour my heart & soul out every week for anyone to see?” “what […]
Read Moremy husband jose has a theory about people. he says that in some weird ways, “we’re always going back to our abusive dads, trying to please them.” he doesn’t mean this in a literal sense (although it’s true for some), but rather that human beings are strangely drawn toward being mistreated. that we live our […]
Read Morelast month i had a one hour conversation with chris yaw from churchnext, which is dedicated to resources & support to nurture healthy churches in all kinds of different ways. it seemed like some of the video was a little slow at the beginning but then it started to kick in, but you can always […]
Read Moreone of my friends calls the typical contemporary typical church-system “the big ship.” they’re strong & powerful & plow through the ocean with confidence. they are dazzling and entertaining. many of us have been on that ship in some way, shape or form, hanging out on the deck enjoying the ride called “church-as-we-knew-it”. but over […]
Read Morehow many times have you all heard me talk about our “crazy” little church, the refuge? and about how people i know who are doing all kinds of wild & beautiful missional things for the kingdom are a “little crazy but not alone”? or how “crazy” my life in the trenches is? i use […]
Read More* i wrote this last month & never got around to posting it. i’ve recently been thinking about it even more, how awesome it would be if we had more help planting new trees. but it requires people to bravely give up the old and begin actively participating in creating the new. * * […]
Read Morei have a black thumb. like if anything green enters my house–plants, flowers, yes even cactuses, within a week or two they are completely dead. it is funny to me that i ended up with this imagery from my post 2 weeks ago–plant new trees. i was amazed by how so many resonated with it […]
Read More“then God said, “let us make human beings in our image, to be like us.” – genesis 1:26, NLT this past week i saw a flurry of facebook posts about john piper’s latest words about masculine christianity. i am pretty out of the blog-reading circuit because there are only so many hours in the day […]
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