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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The dark side of planting in cities
It was half past midnight and I was sitting outside on my apartment’s terrace by myself, lighting up a cigar after a long, stressful and unresolved discussion I had had with my wife Beth. As I overlooked downtown Dadeland’s scarce skyline, a beautiful ‘cuarto-menguante’ shone down only to be soon eclipsed by an immense dark [...]
16 principles of a healthy replant
According to statistical reports every year more than 4,000 churches close their doors in America compared to just over 1,000 new church starts. While clearly more church planting is needed to change the scenario, church re-planting presents itself as a valid alternative to expand the Kingdom of Jesus in global cities. There are several places [...]
Speaking of community… (quotes)
The church is not simply the bearer of the message of reconciliation in the way a newspaper or telephone company can bear any message with which it is entrusted. Nor is the church simply the result of a message, as an alumni association is the product of a school or the crowd in a theater [...]
talking about community again?
This is the 4th time in a year that I will speak on the topic of Christian Community. I don’t want to sound redundant but I really feel the need of drilling in deep our core values into our community’s heart. Especially given the fact that most mega and wanna-be mega churches today are real [...]
iValue – 09’s first sermon series.
During the month of January we will be revisiting Crossbridge’s core values. Reason: We desire to be a church where we have actual values not merely desired values written on a banner that hangs on a wall. We invite you not to miss the recasting of our vision as you are challenged to make these values yours, personally.
Sermons will [...]
Back in the game
It’s been about three weeks since I’ve blogged. Didn’t give up… I was just busy trying to get Crossbridge ready for Christmas and at the same time hosting 10 family members that flew in from Brazil to stay with us for three weeks. On one of the weeks I drove with everyone to Beach Mountain (NC) where [...]
Santa: The Western Projection of God.
Let me start by saying that I have a hard time believing in Freudian thought and modern psychology. However, if the theory that the idea of God being a father-projection were true, Santa Claus would have to be a Western projection of God.
Religion and moralism in the western world depicts God as an old grumpy [...]
God is For Us… Sunday sermon preview.
There are two common ways in which people relate to God. Religious people tend to relate to God in a merit-reward way and irreligious people tend to see God as a total absent being from what goes on in the world. These two approaches are magnified during Christmas. We see this first approach clearly portrayed [...]
Behind the scenes of crafting “The Gospel According to Xmas”
This is an email I sent out to Omar and Marcus sharing my thoughts about the direction I’m taking with new xmas series. Marcus is preparing for worship and Omar will be preaching one of the 4 sermons.
After spending some time meditating on our xmas sermon series I realized a few things.
1. that the sermon [...]
This Sunday’s sermon blurb.
God is With Us – Matt 1:18-25.
“Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty”.
-Mother Teresa
Many do not look forward to Christmas. The reason for is that Christmas has the power to remind people of how lonely their lives are. Those who have broken family structures are reminded, those who live far [...]
Catching my breath…
I’m glad I’m not preaching this Sunday. In sermon fashion I’ll give you three points to prove you why that is true.
1. Past experience.
a. I’m coming out of a ten week series on our discipleship process (Awaken.Experience.Touch)
b. I’m coming out of a very busy week. Last week I prepared and preached three different sermons [...]
A tool for gospel sharing
So… If you were at Crossbridge last Sunday you heard my sermon about evangelism. I sense that churches that talk about it usually make their people feel guilty for not doing so. However, they do a poor job of 1. explaining to people why evangelism usually short-circuits in their lives and 2. equip their [...]
