The Gap Between Christ and Culture

Last week I was introduced to the works of Kary Oberbrunner via Twitter of all places. I was intrigued by his “Recovering Pharisee” moniker and could definitely relate. I downloaded a podcast of a radio interview he did about his book The Fine Line: Re-envisioning the Gap Between Christ and Culture and was absolutely blown away.

Zondervan is currently giving away a free AudioBook of Kary’s book. Click here to download it now. Here is a video of Kary talking about his book. Enjoy!

Kary Oberbrunner Author Bio from josh franer on Vimeo.

Unchanging One

After returning this morning from my “Epic Fathering-Braveheart” meeting, I turned on iTunes and started listening to the haunting, throaty voice of Todd Agnew. I needed his fresh reminder about grace this morning. This guy gets it. If you are not familiar with his music, take a moment to listen to “Grace Like Rain”, “Still Has a Hold”, “Wait for Your Rain”, and “Our Great God” (with Rebecca St. James). Here is the video to “Unchanging One”…

Have a wonderful, grace-filled weekend!

Single’s Life Group

(Just a little thing, but I have noticed how many of my recent posts have started with some variation of “Melody and I…”. Today’s post is no exception! I would apologize and try to be a bit more creative with how I begin a post, but, frankly, I am so blessed to once again be able to say “Melody and I” or “Melody and me” after years of longing for that but NEVER thinking it would actually become a reality that I think you can allow me a bit of redundancy here. Maybe when you see “Melody and I” or “Melody and me” simply insert “God’s grace”.)

Melody and I will be sharing our story tonight. Melody will be in one house with the single women and I will be in another house with single guys. We woke up this morning talking through the details of our journey together (and apart) and honestly, it was again a painful experience. Through tears, we talked about how we worked so hard for years to force our life to fit into this clean and neat little box that we could show to the world and other believers as a type of formula for how to live the victorious Christian life. As hard as we tried to pretend that life was predictable and tidy, the more messy it became and the more our delusion was exposed.

This we know to be true…LIFE IS MESSY! Over the years we spent so much time and energy denying this simple truth rather than embracing the messiness and asking God to show up in the middle of it. Real life has a way of drop-kicking trite Christian cliches that we so desperately want to cling to. Through much pain and much chaos, God showed Melody and me that we could run to Him when life made no sense and seemed to be careening out of control. He showed up in the middle of our pain time and time again.

Please pray for us tonight as we share our story. Pray that we would avoid the temptation to gloss over the messiness and only focus on the getting back together. God continues to teach us so much about the process we went through to get to where we are today and we want to be able to effectively communicate that process to the Singles tonight.

Not Guilty Anymore

Nothing like getting up at 7 AM on a rainy Saturday morning, but that is exactly how my day started today. Melody and I did a garage sale at my Hoover home (which we are still trying to rent or sale, btw…) To top it off, it was a cold and drizzling rain. We left the kids sleeping and it turned out to be a wonderful time for the two of us as we made the 15 minute trip to Hoover (via Starbucks, of course!) We turned on an Eldredge podcast and were challenged by John and Craig to keep the Sabbath. We are very excited as we both sense that great opportunities are just around the corner for us.

After we shared a brief snippet of our story with our church back in November, I got a call from one of the guys who works with the Singles Ministry about sharing at one of the Single’s Life Group meetings sometime in February. Melody will address the single ladies at one house and I will share with the guys at another. We are expecting good discussion as we share our story of miraculous reconciliation.

Reading The Bobosphere this morning, I was introduced to an artist’s name that I had never heard before…Aaron Keyes. I took Bob’s advice and went to iTunes and bought the entire album Not Guilty Anymore. How refreshing as I rest in the truth that I am “not filthy or broken or captive anymore.” All is paid for! The Father loves me just as I am! Mercy is mine!