HILLCITY church

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Good stuff & bad people

Earlier this week I was scrolling through news on ESPN on my phone, when I read the following headline: “She said yes; Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez engaged to be married!” I clicked the link, and was taken to an Instagram post showing her hand on a beach somewhere, with the largest “rock” I think I have ever beheld with mine eyes. And if I’m being honest a thought I’m not all that proud of ran through my head. “How…

The fear of the Lord

It’s something I’ll never forget. The only time I have ever seen my step-dad actually angry. Like raised his voice, and most likely his blood pressure angry. Like stopped me dead in my tracks and made me reconsider all of my life’s goals and dreams angry. Like, I’ve known the man going on 31 years and it’s never going to happen again I am sure, angry. And let’s just say it wasn’t caused by something you’d expect.  My brother and…

But, it’s not my fault…

Against my better judgment, I am going to do something here that I rarely do - mention politics. I am sure little good will come of it, but I’m feeling lucky today so here goes. I am not a member of a political party. I vote based on who I think my values and ideals most closely align with, regardless of their political affiliations. Some people say I am wasting my vote, others say that it’s about weighing the lesser…

Better together

It was one of the scariest things I have ever done. I gathered a room full of people who I had led for two years, people I felt probably looked up to me, people who trusted me and thought of me as someone to share their struggles with - and now I was about to share my struggle with them. What would it cost me? Their trust? Their friendship? Their respect? My job? After all, this same issue had cost…

I know a ghost

There are few things on the planet that can bring me as much joy as what I got to experience last week. My beautiful wife is one of them. Spending time with her is literally my favorite activity in the history of time. My children are a second. Their laugh and smiles are infectious, and just the medicine that this “daddy” needs when he walks through the door each night. Watching a game at Lambeau Field or Miller Park would…

Playing dress up

I’ve never been much for Halloween. When I was young, the most memorable one we had was the year that we got over a foot of snow, and school was canceled the next day. That was quite possibly the best Halloween for this guy until a few years ago. You see my wife has enjoyed Halloween like it was Christmas since she was a child. Her mom used to make costumes, by hand, for the entire family, and it was…

the WHOLE story

When I was growing up, I went to this thing called Sunday School. I was always a little put out about the name, as the content had absolutely nothing to do with the actual day of the week. We didn’t call the school I was attending each day of the week “Weekday school” - and so I thought it was a silly idea to call something Sunday school if we weren’t going to talk about Sundays at all. I’m crazy,…

A side worth taking

Our culture has become incredibly polarizing in SO many areas, politics and religion chief amongst them. Both genres have so many things to KNOW, and opportunities to disagree. As a person whose life is dedicated to spreading the latter, I have found myself to be perhaps a dying breed, a moderate, in both areas. It is my experience that balance in life is important. That EACH side is capable of, and actually does have valid points, ideas, and opinions, and…

I still believe

A few weeks ago I started a new group of messages at our church called centered around the idea of belief. In the “biz” we call this a series. This particular series is called “I still believe.” Other than the incredible opportunity to use the mid 2000’s Jeremy Camp song that plagued Christian radio stations for many years (it’s actually a decent song, just overplayed), I wanted it to represent a feeling of hope I have about the things that…

Easter Sunday

I remember it like it was yesterday. The year is 2011, and the day is February 6th. My family and I have been watching together as our beloved Green Bay Packers played the Pittsburgh Steelers in a game you might have heard of called the Super Bowl. It had started off well for us, the Packers had been in the lead for the entire game, and now in the waning moments, the Steelers were attempting a comeback, in an attempt…