Money Matters

You don’t have to look very deep into the scriptures to discover that God loves to lavishly provide for His creation…. On some level we have to get into our minds that God isn’t thinking, “oh my goodness I’m going to run out of stuff.” The world is a place of abundance. It’s obvious though that God never intended abundance to corrupt the human soul. ….it’s ok for us to have money, but not for money to have us.

The Challenge of Community Pt2

There’s something very important about breaking through our differences. Whether they’re nationalistic, racial, socio-political, economic… That we actually push through our differences to connect with each other – to set those things as secondary because we believe in something deeper; that we’re part of God’s family. God honors that priority."

The Challenge of Community

The worst thing about the whole concept of community is that other people are involved… It’s been said, “the more I get to know some people – the more I like my dog!” That is precisely the point. I think God wants us to come together because he loves the messiness of community. I think it’s very provocative how that the twelve disciples Jesus called all came from various backgrounds. E.g. Simon – a Zealot, and Matthew – a tax collector assisting the Romans.

Community 101 Pt3

" What if God designed faith to be more than an intensely personal experience? It is that. But, what if God designed us to need other people?”

Community 101 Pt2

"Believers are called to love everyone. Fellow believers should be treated with extra care. Ed continues his thoughts on how Christians are to live and grow in faith in community with fellow believers. "

Community 101

The Bible claims that we as believers are all part of the body of Christ—created by God. We as Americans in the west, need to stop and consider—“how am I thinking about other people? Maybe one of the reasons I’m so isolated is because I’m thinking weird.” Faith is more than just a personal expression; it’s also communal.

The Secret Pt3

Ed finishes the three-part series The Secret. In it, he shares some thoughts on the selfish, hedonistic side of this interpretation of the Law of Attraction.

The Secret Pt 2

Ed continues his discussion of “The Secret.”

The Secret Pt1

The tremendous success of the book and DVD, “The Secret,” deserves a serious and thoughtful investigation from the perspective of a Christ-follower. Ed begins the first of his three-part series taken from his latest book “There’s More To The Secret.”

Smart Spirituality Pt 4

" In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,. Theologians are quick to point out that God created this physical dimension on purpose to simply build a home for Himself. His intention from the beginning, as you look at Judeo-Christian thought, is that He intended to move here.""

Smart Spirituality Pt 3

" We live in a culture that wants to polarize people on one side or another, because we want to figure out who the “haves” and “have nots” are. We want to determine who the good and evil people are very clearly with a line in the sand. If we refuse to be discerning, what ends up happening is this kind of dividing, starts to influence people who are in Christ – believers. And we start to divide the world between “us” and “them.” What if trying to think of the world as the “have” and “have nots,” and the “good” and “evil” people is an oversimplification of things?"

Smart Spirituality Pt 2

" All sixty-six books of the Bible address an overarching story. If we miss the over-arching story – the metanarrative, we miss the whole point of what God is after. Believe it or not, many people miss what God is saying – what His point is…"

Smart Spirituality

" Do we complicate the simple and simplify the complex? Simple answers to complex issues always lead to someone getting abused, or discounted in the process on some level. The truth is, not everything can be reduced to simplicity. Not everything that we understand in life can be reduced to a slogan, a bumper sticker, or a sound bite… "

Dudley Do-Right

I think God wants there to be a little Dudley in all of us. I think He wants us and calls us to do right – to live and to act right.

Living In Balance

Living a life in balance doesn’t occur by accident. There is a place for work, rest, and play in our lives.

Dads Day 2007

"When people cry and hurt – God mostly sends people – someone else to get involved. Where is God when people are really hurting? Is He just in prayer? Or when people pray, is He looking for His body to respond? Is God wanting us to lift up our eyes and to not live gated lives, but actually get out beyond where we are? And when we catch wind of someone hurting – that’s really a call to be God to them. "

The Genesis Family Pt 5

"In this installment of The Genesis Family, Ed shares some thoughts on… the family. Also, we hear more on the role of the husband and wife in marriage and as parents."

Stand In The Gap

"Ed and guests share about how Stand In The Gap can impact lives. "

How to get along with people (you can't stand)

"Ed shares some valuable insights into the importance of forgiveness. "

The Genesis Family Pt4

"Billy Graham and Heather Forrest are super cool! "

Moms Day 2007

"Let's start with a controverrsial question. We always call God Father, but could we call Him Mother? It might surprise you, but theologically; the answer is yes. God is not male or female. He is God, and male and female came out of Him. He's the one who created. "

Genesis Marriage

"Falling in love is essy compared to the he work necessary for keeping a marriage strong and healthy"

The Genesis FAmily

"Christianity isn't about getting more power. It's about influencing people with a life that's different!"

The Shape of Faith Pt5

"Ed continues his series on The Shape of Faith during this season of Lent."

What To Do When Sheep Happens

"What do you do when bad stuff happens? Ed shares some thoughts on how we can respond to the bad things that comes our way in life. "

The Shape of Faith Pt 4

"The final installment of Ed's series on The Shape of Faith"

The Shape of Faith Pt3

"In the third part of The Shape of Faith, Ed shares how God has always been moving in the Church "

The Shape of Faith Pt2

"Ed continues his series on The Shape of Faith."

The Shape of Faith

"Ed shares some thoughts on the direction he thinks to God is moving today."

Epiphany Pt 4

Ed continues his discussion on the season of Epiphany. “I don't think we should think we "get" Jesus that simply. He may have made Himself completely accessible to us, but He is still full of mystery!"

Epiphany Pt 3

"Ed continues his discussion of Epiphany in our lives. "

Epiphany

" (Hebrews 1:1...) God has spoken to us in many ways throughout history. But in these last days days, He has spoken to us by His son, whoom He appointed heir of all things, and through whoom He made the universe. The Son is the radiance of His glory. What does that mean? If God is light – Jesus is the bright. If God is water – Jesus is the wet..."

Who is Jesus?

"Born as a man – and yet also God among us. .His brilliance astounded those around Him and silenced his critics He name is Jesus"

Why Did Jesus Come?

"Ed shares the importance of why Jesus came as humanity to be amoung us "

O Come Emmanuel

"His name is Emmanuel – God is with us. Why would God come and be with us? What was He after? The gospel story is really the story of the Creator – God, taking responsibility for what happened to creation. It's the story of the creator – God, bearing the weight of our own problems on His shoulders. It's the story of Jesus coming to take what we caused... "

The Power of Forgiveness

"It's Thanksgiving. What better time than now to talk about the importance of forgiveness in our lives. Here are some thoughts on how to make your time around the table with uncle Tom and sister-in-law Gurtrude great! God knows who your relatives are... and He put you smack in the middle of it all - into that mess! Why? Probably because there's something about you that just ticks God off... God puts people in our lives because he knows that they develope us... "

The Tension of Caring

"What should we be doing as followers of Jesus to try to bless the world around us, lift hurting people, aide people in need, and help bring healing - socially and economically to those less privileged. We all want to help people, but we get stuck over a couple of issues. We don't always know how to help. Where do you start to help a world that's jammed with injustice? What do you do? We don't know how to see the hurting and really let them touch us without us feeling guilty that we have anything!"

Restoring The Fallen

In light of recent events within the evangelical Christian community, Ed shares from scripture and his own life about restoration.

Daring To Care

"I wanna talk with you about these ideas of love , compassion, and mercy. These things come from another place. They help us as believers to be “other-centered.” It's not natural for us in a fallen world because we tend to be “takers” rather than “givers” because we want all the marbles... "

Growing Up In Grace

"Growing Up In Grace "

Breathing With God

"I really think we need to fight for, contend for, and figure out ways of living transformed lives. Where our expression of faith is not just about letting our gift be on parade, or trying to find our annointing that we think will make us be more important in the world. But that we understand that God wants to fill our lives, annoint our lives with His presesence so that we can be great single people, great moms, great dads, great married folks--people who work with a little different spin on it, a different intention from the heart. And that we actually work through our stuff, and we are different... "

Reordering Your Life

" At some point everyone of us has to step back and decide what it is we believe about the world that we are in. What’s really going on here? People have to decide whether or not they believe there’s a God!
"

The Disciplines

"IWhat is God actually trying to accomplish in the world and why are we here? Why do we do church? Why do we gather together? Why do we do stuff like praying and reading the Bible? When God was creating the human race, what did He have in mind? Are we giving Him what He's after in our lives...?"

The Art of Giving

“Philippians 4:19 is an interesting text that calls us to trust God in this arena of our financial provision. You might try to think it’s talking about spiritual needs, but really if you look at the context, there’s no way you can say that. Actually, he’s talking about God getting engaged and involved with us in this arena of provision: jobs, salary increases, bonuses, ideas for new kinds of endeavors that can produce wealth or increase in your life. God will actually get in the mix of that in your life…”

Show Me The Money!

"I wanna talk about your money. I think this touches all of us in a way that we need to think thru… “

Facing Change

“Life is full of seasons (Ecclesiastes 3:1). The only thing that never really changes is the fact that life is full of change. You can fear change and resist it, or you can embrace it. Change is coming! It’s inevitable…”

Have A Good Day

The scripture says, Jesus said to them, "go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation!" Everybody say "go!" We still have to own this as believers, the idea that we've got to communicate with others outside of ourselves, the claims of Jesus. You know that we are living in a culture where everybody is saying "don't talk to me about anything because you're perspective is only valid to you. Don'y try to communicate that to me. Let's all just get along and be tolerant of each other." And so, at the very heart of this call to go into the world that we are in and communicate with people something more than what they value or think about is a bit of a challenge. Even though I think we need to do it respectfully, we still need to do it. And we need to figure out how we can own up before God to this idea that there's a message that we have and a life that we have that we're supposed to communicate to others.

The Life of Faith

"I want to talk to you a little bit about taking charge of your life and what that looks like..."

Who is God?

"Last time we were chatting we were talking about knowing God. We are not just embracing a bunch of ideas about God. We are facing the actual being of God..."

Knowing God

"What does it mean to know God? I mean how is it that we come to know anything?"