One song stuck out to me this Christmas season. It presents such a strong message of the gospel, and yet I’d always overlooked it before. It’s “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” For many years, I’ve seen this as a fairly lightweight song about getting rest and being happy. Admittedly that didn’t fit great with all the other lyrics, but I just missed the point. It turns out it’s a language issue, and I love those. Specifically, two words have shifted their meaning in English over the years which caused me to greatly misunderstand this song. First, the word “rest” was originally related to “restore ..read more

Worship leaders, if you were training another worship leader and had to make sure they really understood one book of the Bible, what would it be? And yes, I know you like all of the books of the Bible. But what one would affect their understanding of worship and worship leadership the most? I’m working on some training material and I want to cover the whole Bible. But I can’t do that deeply. So I want to dig into certain books on a deeper level and I was wondering which books impacted you. Which ones would you use if you were doing the training? Thanks. Todd ..read more

Last spring, I attended the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin College in Michigan. There were many heralded and famous writers there, but my favorite session was on writing fictional characters with an author I had not yet heard of: Shawn Smucker. So, when the conference was over, I bought his novel The Day the Angels Fell. Over the months since then, I have picked up the book many times. Each time I am in the middle of the rush of life, running from thing to thing, and have a few minutes to read. I’ve never gotten very far in the book. This is rare, because I read a lot. But something w ..read more

There has been much conversation lately about including the Psalms in worship to a greater extent. The Word of God can be such a powerful part of our worship experience, yet many times, we choose to sing the words of men. Those songs definitely have value as well, but the Psalms are becoming more and more prominent in discussions about what we should include in our times of worship. So I wanted to post the topic along with some examples to encourage discussion here. I’d love to hear from you about how we can integrate the Psalms into our worship services.   Option and Example 1: Keeping the Ex ..read more

Hopefully this won’t sound too hypey…but this IS the best music offer we’ve ever made. Ardent Records recently shipped us some CD inventory at an amazing price and we’d love to pass the savings along. [Oh no, this IS sounding hypey!] Get 4 full length CD’s + the limited edition “Acoustic Live in Memphis” EP for just $25 + S&H. Quantities are pretty limited, so don’t wait till Black Friday hoping for a better deal. Click over to our STORE page for more details ..read more

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”        Matthew 6:24 (ESV) My dog Henry does not serve two masters. The master he does serve is neither me nor my wife. He serves the master of food. He is a thirteen-year-old basset hound, white around the muzzle, round around the belly. He is in pretty good shape for an old basset but that it not due to lack of effort. He can only eat what we give him. And what he can scavenge. He is old now. So he is slow. He mopes his way ..read more

In case you did not read the title of the blog, if you have not seen the two latest installments of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe), which are Avengers: Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp, you should not read this blog. For one, it will spoil the contents of the movie. And two, you won’t really understand what I’m talking about in this blog anyway. My family loves the Marvel movies. So, when Ant-Man and the Wasp came out, we immediately got tickets at our local Alamo. It’s a little taste of Austin in DFW. The movie is awesome. Mostly, it’s hilarious. But it’s also got a decent story and ..read more

My wife and I took our two dogs for a walk a couple of nights ago. We have an old basset hound and a one-year-old golden retriever mix. As we turned toward the home stretch, I looked up and saw a huge German Shepherd also out for a walk. I was just about to point him out, when he escaped his leash and came running at us. Since these people from our neighborhood had him out for a walk, I assumed he was a nice dog and was just excited. Still, I pulled our dog close to me on the leash and calmly awaited his arrival. Then he growled and attacked our puppy. A very stressful few moments occurred bef ..read more

I like to cook. I think it might be the immediate gratification. You put salmon on a cedar plank on the grill. You put an ear of corn next to it. You cut up some cherry tomatoes, avocado, and cilantro and dump it in a bowl with some salt, pepper, red wine vinegar, and cilantro. Then cut the corn off the cob into the bowl. Scoop some on a plate and then lay the salmon on top of it. Dinner is served. Sorry, this wasn’t meant to be a Pioneer Woman blog. It’s just a quick description of how I spent my evening. Started at 6, ate at 7. Had a plan, followed the instructions, had a good dinner. I thin ..read more

In my second year in seminary, I had a professor ask me to grade for him. I had taken his class the year before and had struggled with writing papers, as I’ve discussed in previous blogs. But I was honored and accepted. Grading other people’s papers helped me understand my own. I graded for him that entire school year. Then in my fourth year of seminary, I had a professor ask me to TA (teaching assistant). This is like grading but more intense. You are actually in the classroom, helping shape the students’ learning. I had taken this course before as well, and I had a great TA in my semester. I ..read more