Home Archive by category "Life" (Page 3)

Category: Life

A Mother’s Legacy

Happy Birthday, Mom. My mom passed away in 1996 – but her presence and influence has never left me. I am so thankful for a mother who saw past my craziness and energy and hyper-activity and saw only God-given potential. I can remember countless times when she would hold my head between her hands and though exhausted (exasperated even!) she would say to me, “Karl, if you can ever figure out how to focus all this creative energy for God – watch out world.” Even when my creative energy was getting me in trouble, she was instilling in me HOPE that God wired me the way He did for a PURPOSE – that I wasn’t a screw-up – that He made me for a reason! That I would someday help people, even if while I was young it meant getting in trouble for being misunderstood. Today my puppets do the things that once got me in trouble. People buy DVDs of toys doing things that I once got taken away in church. Through Kidology.org and the other things I do, I have so many creative outlets now to equip and encourage other kid ministers and impacts kids, she no way…

Continue reading

The Epic Story of Your Life

I had the honor preaching in “Big Church” for the final Sunday of 2020, and brought a rather unusual message. I’m not sure Star Wars, Die Hard, Stranger Things, Nemo and Kung Fu Panda have ever all been in a sermon together until now. But I do hope it will both challenge and encourage you. I’ve long been a student of Story and dove into the Elements of Story and why the Gospel can’t help but make an appearance even in stories written by people who do not know or follow the God of the Bible. Enjoy:  

Continue reading

Blessed to Serve

What a great word of affirmation as we head in to 2021! None of us in ministry deserve it. We are not here because of talents, skills or gifts. It is wholly because of mercy and grace and God’s Call upon our lives. Serve with humilty and gratitude. After describing his own inadequacies, Paul goes on to say, “But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that… Jesus might display his immense patience as an example…” (Verse 16) I am so blessed to be on staff at an amazing church, and to have the added blessing of an outlet through Kidology.org to Equip and Encourage others. As I head in to a new year I am overcome with gratitude.

Continue reading

Goodbye 2020, Welcome 2021!

I can’t remember a New Year in my life where everyone was as eager for a New Year as this year entering 2021. It was a challenging year, to say the least. If you are reading this in January 2021, I don’t need to explain why, and I’m pretty sure if you are reading this years from now, I still won’t need to explain it. I suspect 2020 will be infamous for years, right up there with 1929, 1941 and 2001. This past year contained elements of each of these horrific years, financial attack, attack on freedom from a foreign country and the nation brought to it’s knees. However, the one major difference between 2020 and many other times of national crisis, the People of America rallied together. This time, they tore apart. And that’s as close to political commentary as I’m going to get. The impact on the church was devastating. Churches closed, services moved online and so much more that threatened our ability to be the church. Or did it? Some have said that 2020 broke many church. I disagree. If I’m thankful for anything in 2020, and I’m thankful for a lot, actually, I am thankful that…

Continue reading

50 Life Lessons I’ve Learned

Happy Birthday to me… a year later. I’m now 51, not a very exciting number. But last year I celebrated the BIG FIVE-0 by writing a book! FROM THE INTRODUCTION: Hello friends, I turned 50 today. I’m as old as Red Robin, Cracker Barrel, Tic-Tacs, Scooby-doo, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The GAP, Wendy’s, Sesame Street, The Brady Bunch and even the Internet. I celebrated by enjoying some down time in the mountains with my family. I decided to write out fifty lessons I have learned over the past fifty years. At first, I thought it would be hard to come up with fifty. In the end, I had to wrestle with which to delete. Some of these will be familiar – but I hope some will catch you by surprise and perhaps give you pause to consider them. Many of these were learned the hard way! Perhaps your learning can be easier by reading this! The sources for these are Scripture, my parents, friends, teachers, colleagues, and likely famous people I’ve either read or heard speak. I claim no originality to any of them, even as half of them are likely my unique way of expressing what I’ve…

Continue reading