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Doing stand up comedy as a follower of Jesus in Austin, TX

Followers of Jesus often face a tension when working in environments that are not shaped by Christian values. Comedy clubs, music venues, corporate settings, universities, and many other spaces raise the same question: How can someone be present in a culture without simply becoming a participant in it?

When Parents and Children Don’t Become “Soul Mates.”

Parenting

I was on Tik-Tok recently, and I saw this comic strip that described this mom struggling to connect with her daughter. The comic displayed a mother and daughter living together but the two never experienced a closeness with each other. At the end of the mother’s life the mother apologized for never feeling close to the daughter and unbeknownst to the mother, the daughter felt the same way, which in some way, actually made them closer together. Maybe for the first time?

Getting Over Grumpiness: How to Stop Resenting Where You Are While Still Hoping for More

Soul care

Everyone has a season of life where we start to feel grumpy: We want our marriage to feel closer, but every week feels like the same argument. We want our job to be meaningful, but Sunday night still feels like dread. We want our parenting to be calmer, but we keep losing our patience at the same places. And we end up living in this exhausting middle space: We hope things will get better, but it doesn’t feel like anything will actually change.

The Leadership Divide: Why Some People Rise and Others Stay Frustrated

Leadership

Leadership isn’t a title or a personality type. It’s a pattern. It’s an outlook. Essentially, leadership is a choice. Every day, people are quietly sorting themselves into one of two groups: those who rise and those who stay frustrated. And the differences rarely comes down to talent. More often it’s the invisible stuff; attitude, behavior, and the stories people tell themselves. Here are some observations to consider:

When God Doesn’t Answer Our Prayers

Prayers

There are times in life when we are crying out to the Lord and we feel like He doesn’t hear us. Sometimes the Lord “feels” distant because He is stretching and deepening our faith to trust Him. Sometimes there are supernatural things at work that we don’t see like in the book of Daniel. Consider Daniel 10:12:

Lessons Learned from a Fellow Parent

Family, Parenting

My wife and I have worked in pastoral ministry for over 20-years. My wife has worked in personal counseling as a Licensed Professional Counselor for 10 of those years. A common theme in parenting we have noticed is that the pressure of parenting is at an all time high.

All the studies today on children show that children are feeling more pressure to succeed, they carry more anxiety, they struggle to know how to respond to challenges in life and the overwhelming answer for our children from parenting resources today seems to be on the parents doing more to help their children navigate these challenges.