Two Handed Warriors

On April 7, author, and playwright-turned-pastor Dave Schmelzer interviewed me for a podcast posted 4/19 on his website: Not The Religious Type, on the Blue Ocean platform. It was a great experience, and I really want you to listen to it. However, first I’d like you to know a few things about Dave and his [...]

Joshua Medcalf of Dream Sports Academy and Train to Be Clutch consulting is one of the more remarkable young men I have met in Hollywood. Watch these two videos and tell me if you don’t agree. Joshua Medcalf @Pepperdine University from Dream Sports Academy on Vimeo. Dream Sports Academy Journey from Dream Sports Academy on Vimeo. For [...]

Shane Claiborne a pioneer in the New Monasticism movement and author of “Jesus for President” and “The Irresistible Revolution” sits down with JD Walt of  Asbury Seedbed to discuss why getting theology right makes a big differences in the lives of people.   Asbury Seedbed is a resourcing network of Asbury Theological Seminar http://asburyseedbed.com/

One highlight of our recent trip to New England was the Blue Ocean Summit in Cambridge, MA., where I was pressed into service on a couple of plenary panel discussions. Stanford anthropologist, Tanya Luhrmann, PhD, started the week off with a remarkable report on her study of the impact of kataphatic prayer (prayer where God [...]

Why the day my wife announced that she wanted to leave became the best day of my life.

Sometimes God’s greatest miracles come in our darkest hour “Rosario’s been shot!” Two years ago tonight I was in MN on a fundraising trip for Act One when I received a frantic call from alumnus Chris Dyball telling me that Act One staff member Rosario Rodriguez had been shot in the chest at point blank [...]

As I’ve noted in Paparazzi in the Hands of an Angry God, the leaders of America’s First Great Awakening recognized that societal transformation was every bit as much a media revolution as it was a spiritual movement. No one represented this approach better than George Whitefield, the man who Yale historian Harry Stout identifies as ‘America’s first [...]

Is the church just a business with a Cross stuck on top? Great article by Chuck Swindoll–”America’s most influential active preacher”–in Leadership Journal. I disagree with him on some minor points on the inherent evil of technology and new media (see, Paparazzi in the Hands of an Angry God). However, I am completely on board [...]

Love Wins: The Controversy That Keeps On Giving It’s not every day that a pastor makes the cover story of Time Magazine. Rick Warren did it as recently as 2008, as did T.D. Jakes (2001), and Jerry Falwell (1985). Billy Graham (1954, 1993, 1996, 2007), and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr (1957, 1964, 1965, 2007) are the [...]

In honor of Passover Week I thought I would let you in on one of Hollywood’s most moving connections between faith and culture: The Synagogue for the Performing Arts. The Synagogue for the Performing Arts was founded in 1973 by members of the entertainment community–actors, screenwriters and industry professionals who shared a common desire to [...]