Apprentice 2 Jesus

  • Dan

    Building character

    There are some practices we can install into our lives that build deep character. It’s beyond the quick dopamine hits we get from short videos or quick hits on social media. This is the deeper work we need to rebuild in our lives. A few years ago, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist, Angela Duckworth, got a bit more specific. She…

  • Dan

    Legacy

    This week we witnessed the national mourning of Jimmy Carter. Viewings in Atlanta and Washington, followed by his funeral, attended by all five living presidents. I was still in elementary school when he was elected president. My only memories of him were around the hostage crisis in Iran, so at that time I was cemented with a bad image of…

  • Dan

    All I have

    There are some challenges I’ve given myself in the new year, one of which being more in the Word and less on social media. It’s all a work in progress. May 2025 find me leaning in to hear the Spirit speaking through the Word. I want to understand his whispering to me on a regular basis.

  • Dan

    Sermon on Simeon and Anna

    This past Sunday I was grateful to preach on Simeon and Anna. LISTEN HERE. I need the example of Simeon and Anna in my life. To wait. To anticipate. To hear the voice of the Spirit.

  • Dan

    Thoughts on stupidity

    I am reading through Letters and Papers from Prison (Bonhoeffer) from the Fortress Press series. This volume opens with a prologue, which seems to be some reflections from Bonhoeffer around 1942. It’s been about 10 years since Hitler has hit the scene and Bonhoeffer is reflecting on key areas that have been influential in that decade. Stupidity is an area

  • Dan

    Living in Chaos — The path of simplicity

    The past few months have been spent digging a little more into the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Lately that has been looking to untangle the complicated life he led so I’ve opened up some books looking at other people trying to track Bonhoeffer’s theological process. And I’m in deep weeds.

  • Dan

    Living in chaos

    I am currently reading through Bonhoeffer the Assassin? by Mark Thiessen Nation, Anthony Siegrist, and Daniel Umbel. They take on what they call the “myth” that Bonhoeffer was an active participant in the plots to assassinate Hitler.

  • Dan

    Songs for my birthday

    In the past few weeks I’ve noticed a few people post lists of songs for their birthdays. Things like “40 songs for 40 years.” I liked that thought so I compiled my own list. I won’t turn 60 for another year, so this is “59 songs for 59.”

  • Dan

    Darkness does not win

     4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:4-5, NIV) I have this text in mind as I read through the life of Bonhoeffer. Currently, I am searching out the opinions of those scholars who believed Bonhoeffer was only “assassin-adjacent,” so to speak, along with those…

  • Dan

    How to train pastors

    I am fairly locked into the life of Bonhoeffer right now. I am working through a book, Bonhoeffer the Assassin? by Nation, Siegrist, and Umbel. I read Marsh’s biography of Bonhoeffer and recently finished Life Together by Bonhoeffer. We need his example in this day for our cultural Christianity.