The Church is Not a Circus
If you are a pastor you know that the summer months are transitional for a lot of folks. A lot of church shopping takes place during this time of the year and so, I find it interesting to observe what certain individuals are looking for in a local church. Some of the top questions visitors ask as they’re inquiring about…
Giving and the Gospel
In the classic “The Cost of Discipleship” Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes: “Discipleship mean adherence to the person of Jesus, and therefore submission to the law of Christ which is the law of the cross.” In this quote, Bonhoeffer is trying to get across the idea that following Jesus does not imply in simply learning from and about him but ultimately, in…
Top 10 List to Know if Your Pastor is Preaching the Gospel
I believe a preacher is effective when he is faithful. Faithful not necessarily to his tradition nor to the people but to the Gospel he was called to proclaim. As a young preacher wrestling with being faithful I have given some thought to what faithfulness to the Gospel in preaching looks like. This top ten list is what I use…
Gospel of Mark Resources
Here are some suggestions to further your understanding of the Kingdom of God as we go through the Gospel of St. Mark this year. 1. Pray corporately by going weekly to our prayer calendar page (on this site). 2. Participate in one of our community groups and take an even deeper look at Mark. 3. Buy one of these books:…
A Pastor Is…
Every year I like to reevaluate myself based on how I ministered to myself, my family and, my church in the previous year. Through Bible reading, prayer and, conversations with brothers and sisters in Christ I seek guidance to focus on what’s important for the year ahead. Every time I do this I find that there’s not too much to…
The Gospel According to Immigration
I’m an immigrant and I love Miami because it’s full of immigrants and children of immigrants like me. But as most of you know, there’s this tension among immigrant people. I have friends that have been here for a little time and that have completely assimilated to the American culture to the point that they are embarrassed to speak their…
Summer highlights
It’s been a while since my last post. Truth is that I’ve had a very busy summer trying to focus on family, crossbridge’s leadership, our new Brickell church campus and, on a few ministry engagements outside of crossbridge. Here are some of the highlights: 1. In July Beth and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary on a cruise. We lived…
Why we sprinkle babies
Why we sprinkle babies Yesterday I was able to perform one of my favorite things that ministry allows me to do– infant baptism. Some people were surprised that Crossbridge baptizes babies so, I decided to write a post to explain why we sprinkle babies. 1. We are Presbyterian. Part of what it means to be Presbyterian or Reformed is to…
Why Miami?
Yesterday I once again had the opportunity to talk to Campus Crusade Staff folks about the importance of doing ministry in Miami. I gave them three reasons. The same reasons that led my wife and I to land in this great city a little over 2 years ago. 1. Theological Reason – Cities have a special place in God’s heart….
Church Planting Reminders (Reflection on Brickell)
Yesterday I spent most of day in the Brickell area. I led a Bible study, met with a core group member, met with my staff, a local community group leader and a music indusrty executive. In between the meetings I shook hands with city counsel members, introduced myself to a few local professionals and checked on the local real estate….
Going to Bed With Rachel and Waking up to Leah.
Two weeks ago I started a series of sermons in the life of Jacob entitled “One Life”. Jacob is the easiest biblical character for us modern people to relate to mainly because there’s nothing worth emulating in his life. There has never been a civilization in history like ours — so proud of being broken. The more I study his…
“Sábado de Aleluia”: Accomplished Salvation setting the pace for Salvation Applied
Today is Easter Saturday 2010. In Latin America we call it “Sábado de Aleluia” which can be translated as “Hallelujah Saturday”. Growing up I always questioned why they called it Hallelujah Saturday. After all, if there was a sentiment that represented what Jesus’ disciples were going through after the “raboni” was buried it would have to be despair. So, why…
A new campus? Why not a new service?
Why are you adding a new campus when you have not even out grown your current facilities? That’s one popular questions I’ve been getting from people (especially those who are not from Crossbridge) trying to understand why we are launching this new campus downtown Miami. I frankly think it’s a great question because it all goes back to our DNA…
How come they are not the ones asking the question?
It has got to be the third person in the last two weeks that has asked me about the existence of God in light of the tragedy in Haiti. The last words I heard before I walked out of that Starbucks were “How can a good god exist and allow these things to happen, a god like that has no…
Pastor of Availibility
Last week I was able to hook up with an old friend of mine who happens to be a pastor as well. He’s not a senior pastor, a youth pastor, a ministry pastor, a worship pastor nor a, family’s pastor. He’s an “Availability Pastor”. Have you heard of such thing? I hadn’t ’till then. When I first heard him state…
Preaching Tensions
Yesterday I got a call from my friend Chris. He said: “Listen man, I’m going to be in your area do you wanna grab some lunch over the little french bistro off of 136?” Every so often we get together to support what each other is doing, bounce ideas off of each other and, ventilate what we are currently wrestling with.
Well, yesterday’s topic ended up being “preaching”.
A Story of Ingratitude
Here’s a story I shared in church today. I shared this story today because this is thanksgiving week. This story was shared to me first by mom as an attempt to get me to return a favor, a service or, a compliment. Something that when I was a child, I was really bad at. I have to tell you, it worked. It worked more than the sharp pinches she gave in my kidney section or the severe reprimands on the spot.
A short piece on sports and spirituality
I’m a sports fan and for a while I’ve been wanting to write a short piece on it. Specially about where sports interacts and intersects with spirituality. I’ve often found myself comparing what happens in my soul when I play a soccer match, read the sports section of an online paper and, watch one of my country-men fight an MMA…
Savior, save me from the things I most want!
Every once in a while I get tweets from colleagues that read more or less like this “yesterday, x # of people got saved! Praise Jesus!”. While I do rejoice that people are committing their lives to Jesus (and BTW – I do believe in public conversions and altar calls) there’s always been a counter question in my head. What…
Life hanging by a thread
Have you ever had the feeling that your whole life is hanging by just a very thin thread? That everything you’ve worked really hard to build can just crumble at any moment? You’re not alone. There are days I wake up feeling the same way. When that’s the case my prayer to God is: -”Father, give me wisdom to keep…
Ahead of the Sunday curve.
I’m sitting in my office with my feet on my desk reflecting upon where crossbridge should be in the next 5 years. I just came back from a lunch meeting I had with pastor Sam and Jeff Springer. Sam is our connections pastor and Jeff is the head of our leadership development team. A year ago when crossbridge was launched,…
City of Contrasts
Since I’m currently preaching a series of sermons on the theology of Miami, one of my leaders at Crossbridge emailed me this week a link to America’s Favorite Cities website. I love when they do this. It shows they are into the series topics and it helps my preparation. The website basically ranks cities into seven categories according to both…
Reason for CityPulse
Tomorrow I start preaching a new series of sermons entitled CityPulse on the theology of Miami. Everyone has a set of beliefs (which makes them a theologian) and those beliefs will dictate the way that life unfolds for them. It will influence how they spend their money, how the cary out their relationships, how they deal with crisis and how…
What do we miss out when we miss out on hospitality?
“An embrace involves always a double movement of opening and closing. I open my arms to create space in myself for the other. The open arms are a sign of discontent at being myself only and of desire to include the other. They are an invitation to the others to come in and feel at home with me, to belong…
