Intersections

1) I was born on Mother’s Day. 2) I am 6’1” tall (183cm), at least that was what I measured when I was at military processing. It’s the tallest I’ve ever been measured, so I’m sticking with it. 3) I was a vegetarian for five years, although if I was totally honest, it was more carb-etarian than non-meat-eater. I hear Oreos are vegetarian, which doesn’t help anyone. 4) I have always been a dog person, so much so that I couldn’t imagine what a life with a cat would be like. (“They poop in a box and they sleep all the time? That’s dumb.”)  So when my wife came to me and said that she would like to have a cat, I was a rather hard sell. But when I realized that it meant so much to her, I caved. Now, eight years later, the darn box-pooper has made himself irreplaceable. 5) I love Doctor Who . Not what sure what caused my fascination, but the writing is spot on, and there’s a great chemistry between the characters which pulls me in. 6) I have dreams of hiking the ent...

  FROM THE PASTORS DESK Happy September everyone! Hopefully each of you are doing well, despite all I have heard about the busy-ness of this month. This will be my first popcorn festival season! I am excited to get in there, raise some money for our missions, and get the story of Bethany Church out into the community.  The theme this month will be AUTHENTICITY. But what does it m ean to be authentic? As Brené Brown writes in her book The Gifts of Imperfection, “Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we should be, and embracing who we are.” This really resonates with me because it is too easy in our world today to hide. As a friend recently told me, the opposite of authenticity is hypocrisy. Our world knows too much about that today. Well - if this world is so hypocritical, how can we as a church fight against that? I have a few ideas. First, vulnerability is the key. God created you to be who you are. No one on this planet has experienced every...