Instead of a Show

Last Sunday night at Seven24 we looked at Isaiah 1:10-18, a passage in which God essentially expresses disdain for the supposedly “spiritual” acts of the people of Jerusalem who enjoyed participating in religious rituals but failed to practice justice and protect the poor and oppressed.  The passage was the fourth we have looked at in [...]

Some Thoughts on Fireproof

First, a few prefaces: In case you made it to my blog by some sort of web search and you don’t know me personally, I am a 26-year old Christian pastor, and I consider myself to be moderately conservative theologically and moderately liberal politically.  I consider myself an evangelical, though I am frequently irritated that [...]

U2’s Bono on the Wall Street Bail-out (Updated)…and some more of my thoughts

“It’s extraordinary to me that the United States can find $700 billion to save Wall Street and the entire G8 can’t find $25 billion dollars to save 25,000 children who die every day from preventable diseases.”
-Bono, found on The American Prospect blog
Extraordinary, indeed. What a broken world we live in…
Bono made those remarks at former [...]

The One Campaign’s Presidential Debate Petition

While there is some doubt as to whether or not the first presidential debate will actually happen on Friday, the One campaign is hosting an online petition to encourage moderator Jim Lehrer to ask one question about poverty during the debate (whenever it happens).
According to the One campaign, there have only been two questions asked [...]

Out of Nowhere

10:43 p.m.- Almost home.
Driving home from an evening at San Diego State University where I had seen the new Invisible Children film “Go” with my wife and brother in-law.
Christie is asleep in the reclined passenger seat, and I am piercing the relative silence by yapping into my bluetooth trying to arrange a meeting for later [...]

What Would Jesus Take a Stand for?

Ok, confession time.
I want to follow Jesus with everything in me, but there are times when I want to disassociate myself from the word “Christian” and much of what it implies. I am not ashamed of Jesus, nor am I ashamed of the gospel.  Far, far from it.  I am ashamed of a vocal minority [...]

Read this book

If you’re looking to educate yourself on issues of human trafficking, but you don’t have a ton of time, you absolutely must read Sold by Patricia McCormick. It’s about 260 pages long, but don’t be fooled, there is a ton of white space in the book.  I read it in about four hours yesterday, and [...]

I stand corrected…

In my last post I implied that Starbucks did not use fair trade coffee in their stores.
It turns out, that is not entirely true.  Having done a little bit of research on the matter, and having been made aware of some of Starbucks’ purchasing policies by a friend of mine, I’m not quite sure what [...]

Fair Trade Organic Coffee

This last Sunday night as part of our Justice series at Seven24 I suggested that a small part of what we can do to seek justice is patronize companies that promote ethical business practices.
The coffee industry is one where massive exploitation takes place.  Growers in developing countries are locked into long term contracts by large [...]

On the Inconvenience of Justice

“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” -Micah 6:8
That verse was the focus of our teaching time this last weekend at Seven24 for the second week of our series, Justice: [...]