Parents, what are your children learning from your worship? Do they see the same excitement as when you go to a basketball game? Do they see you prepare for worship as you do for a vacation? Do they see you hungry to arrive, seeking the face of the Father? Or do they see you content to leave the way you came?.....They are watching. Believe me. They are watching.

We're also a multi-site church, so we have other pastors on other campuses who want to read the message before the video plays on the weekend services. So it just works better for me.

If relationships matter most then [at the end of our lives], shouldn't they matter most now?

When you teach on a familiar text, you're capitalizing on common knowledge. When you teach on an unfamiliar text, you're having to build a bridge of understanding, and we need to do that as well.

The Lord is near! You're not alone. You may feel alone. You may think you're alone. But there's never a moment in which you face life without help. God is near. God repeatedly pledges his proverbial presence to his people. Don't assume God is watching from a distance. Avoid the quicksand that bears the marker "God has left you!" Don't indulge this lie. If you do, your problem will be amplified by a sense of loneliness. It's one thing to face a challenge, but to face it all alone? Isolation creates a downward cycle of fret.

Fear creates a form of spiritual amnesia

Fredrick Buechner kind of loosened up my clerical collar, you might say.