Nashville is a tricky city for us Christians. On one hand, we’re Southern enough that the church is still expected and Christianity is not completely unknown. On the other hand, we’re metropolitan enough that the social norms and ideas of the secular world are fully engrained and lived in the society around us.
In Nashville it’s not necessarily completely odd that you go to church on Sunday or have a “spiritual” life, but it is very clear that proclaiming Jesus as “The Way” and expressing traditional Christian ethics out loud in mixed company is not welcome. Nashville is the type of place where no one bats an eye at someone being a Christian, but they are shocked when your Christianity affirms things like sacraments, resurrection, and a God whose holiness impacts even our most intimate moments. In short, Christianity is fine so long as it doesn’t impact your life or your worldview in any way whatsoever.
Read more...Now, for those of you who know me — and even for those who’ve just heard the last few seconds — I’m sure it’s hard to believe that I could be any odder than I am now. But, believe you me, I was a very strange and awkward teenager. Asthmatic, nerdy, Mormon boys don’t really have a lot of places to fit in in Alabama. Looking back, it’s a sure sign of God’s providence and protection over my life that I made it out of school relatively unscathed. Outside of God, there really is no reason why I shouldn’t have been mercilessly bullied each and every day.
Read more...A few weeks back I had the opportunity to drive a Tesla Model 3 for 1200 miles roundtrip from Nashville to western Pennsylvania. It was a great trip and gave me some clarity around electric cars and what the future might hold. So, continue below and I’ll give you the good, the bad, and my thoughts on what the future of the American road trip might be.
Read more...If there’s one thing the World knows about us Christians, it’s that we’re hypocrites. We’re either out there telling people we believe in love and peace when they see volumes one through eight of “The Crusades and Other Christian Wars” on the shelf right behind us. Or we’re wearing a WWJD t-shirt and a purity ring as we stumble down the Strip in Vegas. Naturally, we like to rationalize these hypocritical Christians away in our minds. They’re the “wrong” kinds of Christians: hippies who need to better understand just war theory and cultural Christians who like the Church so long as it doesn’t interfere with their own personal goals and desires.
Read more...How many of y’all have sat through an all-hands meeting? Having spent the greater part of a decade in the Nashville corporate scene, I’ve been in my fair share. For an hour (or more if you’re particularly unlucky) a stream of people come across the stage (or these days your screen) to, nominally, share with you “exciting” news and to “inform” you about all the “good” things on the horizon. But, we all know the reality. It’s spin. A reorganization is going to be announced. Layoffs happened in a part of the org. The company is moving its focus to a new product or industry.
Read more...This morning while I was listening to my top Spotify listens for 2022, Judah & the Lion’s song Take a Walk hit me in a special way.
In the chorus it says:
Let’s go take a walk downtown/ and act like we’re the heroes/ that we dreamed we’d be when we were young/ we can be the giants/ in the streets we learned to drive in/ and we’ll ride away into the sun
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