So, our State Fair is going on here in Arizona. It’s not quite like State or County Fairs in places like Wisconsin or Oregon. I imagine in those places all manner of fall magic: real cider, pumpkin soup and fresh smells of cinnamon and roasted corn with churned butter.

I can’t adequately describe how much fun I’m having writing content for the characters from “Bo’s Café” as they talk to each other on our new website-bo’scafe.com You click on the door of the restaurant and it takes you out onto the upstairs deck, where you’re seated at a table next to the regulars. Each week some combination of Hank, Cynthia, Lindsey, Carlos, Bo, Andy and Steven show up to discuss their lives, Bo’s cooking and whatever messy stuff coming out of an environment trying to figure o...

September 7th, 2009 by John Lynch Today I’ve been thinking about that place in us that doesn’t change by will power, diligence or good intention. It’s our perception of ourselves. My self-perception,  historically, has seemed to fluctuate like the stock market, between an inflated sense of greatness and irrational inferiority.

It’s been several weeks now since I returned from the eleventh annual Ernest Borgnine Memorial Music Appreciation Society weekend. I know. Odd.

August 24th, 2009 by John Lynch Not long ago we were out on the road again, presenting the Two Roads talk. I think I have spoken that message over 200 times and have never lost my passion for it. Anyway, long story short-afterwards I’m chatting with a handful of new friends-and a man I don’t recognize steps into the circle.

It’s the middle of the night-and I’m up. This happens predictably when I don’t take a Tylenol PM. Somewhere in middle age I’ve lost the ability to sleep.

If if we are supposed to trust God, and if we can trust God;, then what are we to trust Him with? *1st-trust is not expecting that He’ll make things work out the way we always want. That’s not trusting God-it’s conjuring up a stupid and mean genie.

All my childhood I can’t remember trusting anyone with me. My best guess is I wasn’t sure anyone could or would adequately protect me. My response to hurt was not to find protection, but to resolve I wouldn’t allow others close enough to hurt me.

Tonight, I’m setting up a discussion time for our next generation leadership group. Some of our leaders and all our elders are taking about 70 young leaders through a process of preparing them to gradually take over the leadership of our fragile, funky church. We call it Timothy Trust.

“There are no together people, only those who dress better”, or as Bruce says, “…only those with brighter teeth.” Everyone needs grace all the time. Everyone needs to live out of their new identity all the time. No exceptions.

It was two and a half years ago. He picked me up at the Springfield airport for a convocation series at the College of the Ozarks. The moment I met Dean Zehnder I didn’t feel good about this whole gig.

So, anyway, here’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time. How do these truths of grace and identity and humility and trust, and received love, and safety and permission and protection and vulnerability and so on and so forth…how do they really get transferred? We’ve got a DVD and CD entitled something like “The 2 Roads Talk.” It’s a fairly revolutionary message for folk who’ve grown up in environments of performance or young people who are discovering their own faith.

This morning on my run in the desert mountains I was asking myself, “What’s a diamond ring mean to the typical married woman?” Treasure beyond price. So, why did Lisa give hers away to start a prosthetics ministry for the maimed children of blood diamond country, Sierra Leone? And, this.