Category: Church Planting
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Isaac
Disclaimer: This post is nearly three times longer than my typical posts. I’ve had several folks reach out and ask how we are doing, and haven’t really had the words to express. I know people everywhere are having to deal with the challenges of their present reality in their own unique way. Countless others have…
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Nine
Nine. I’m sure there is some sort of great spiritual significance to the number nine. But this weekend the number nine is significant because it was that many years ago that RiverChurch Chattanooga officially launched. This weekend always brings a great deal of reflection for me, every year. Lots of memories. Lots of mountain tops.…
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Please. Just Stop.
I saw this man yesterday morning. Sleeping in the doorway of a church down the street from my shop. I thought about him all day long. If you could have heard the thoughts running through my mind . . . “How sad! Sleeping in the doorway of a church.” “They’d probably run him off if…
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The Mandate
It was almost ten years ago, when Kristia and I came back to Chattanooga, to determine for certain that this was the place that God was leading us to as we began to sense a time of transition dawning over our lives. My mentor, friend, and local history expert, Kevin took Kristia and I on…
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Life is Short. Eternity is Forever.
I stood by her bedside a little while ago. She could only communicate with a pen and paper. It was almost a year ago that I stood by her husband’s bedside. He had collapsed the day before in the checkout line at Walmart. A couple of customers and myself tried to resuscitate him. He survived, but only…
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Praying in Cirlces
They are one of the first and easiest shapes we learn to draw in school, or even pre-school. They don’t have to be perfect, just relatively discernable. They are naturally formed when we stand in a group of people. If we get lost, we get the most frustrated when we realize that we’ve been driving in them…
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Counting My Blessings
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by
It’s been a long, hard, amazing, wonderful blessed week. I have experienced a whole new level of tired, and yet I have been blessed in ways I could never fully describe. Still as I sit and reflect, counting my blessings, I find myself overwhelmed with gratitude and awe. 1. My Princess – Makenzie She turned…
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Why Do Good?
I’m moved today by a song by Matthew West called “Do Something.” This song speaks so much to the call of God on my life and His call upon the community of faith I pastor. A common phrase around RiverChurch is that “We are to go BE the Church.” We live up to that call…
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Not The Church
Its one empty room right now. A few other empty rooms are attached to it. It needs some tables and chairs and a few other things. But, its the space that God has miraculously provided for RiverChurch to gather downtown. I walk through and imagine what amazing things God will do in this room.…
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From Dream to Reality
Six years ago I stood on a sidewalk in downtown Chattanooga with my wife and made this passing statement, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we had a church downtown that was a coffee shop and a hub for ministry in the city?” With wide eyed wonder and all the love in her heart, Kristia simply…