Rich's Ride

What If It’s Impossible?

Let’s talk a bit about what it looks like when they keep telling you it’s impossible. Can’t see the video? Click here. Please leave a comment here.

Recently it seems like a disproportionate number of folks in my extended circle have encountered various kinds of adversity—illness, financial setbacks, relationship struggles, and personal challenges. I don’t want to seem uncaring or matter-of-fact about my friends’ pain. Actually, that’s not what I want to write about. What strikes me is our tendency to celebrate […]

Insiders

November 12, 2012
by Rich

Happy Monday! Sometimes I wonder about myself and why I think of things like today’s word-of-the-week… INSIDERS Do you ever think about how much of what we do is aimed at insiders? I’m not sure why, but recently I’m struck by how my “church stuff” resembles a closed circle. It just doesn’t seem like I’m […]

Who Makes Jesus Relevant?

November 9, 2012
by Rich

Saw one of those election post-mortem articles attributing the result to the perceived “irrelevance” of the American church. Actually, I only read the headline and maybe the first paragraph. Then I got lost in self-reflection. If Jesus is perceived as mostly irrelevant in our communities—and I suspect He is—don’t we have much bigger concerns than […]

Chicken Little Was Wrong

November 8, 2012
by Rich

The sky isn’t falling. Contrary to post-election paralysis-by-analysis, “the next four years” will not be the most crucial, difficult, trying period in US history. It will not be the longest four years we’ve experienced. In fact, the next four years will most likely be just about four years long. Certainly we face challenges, but when […]

Your Mission Needs A Mission

Okay, that’s an odd title. A while back, Pastor Mark Orphan made a powerful statement about a project we were discussing. “We don’t have much long-term success when we do an activity for ourselves. People respond when there’s a cause, a reason for what we’re asking them to do that’s bigger than us or them.” […]

Milestones

Okay. I’m officially a little bit excited. Last week, we reached an important milestone in the publication process of the new book. I’m really pleased with the design of both the cover and interior layout. As a writer, it’s humbling when artists use their talents to interpret the words graphically. I think these folks did […]

Milestones

November 6, 2012
by Rich

Change

November 5, 2012
by Rich

Happy Monday! I’m right in the middle of today’s word-of-the-week… CHANGE In thirty-five years as an educator I worked with some incredibly creative individuals. We discovered that, like any large organization, systematic change was often easy to talk about but difficult to accomplish. I developed my own semi-sarcastic adage: The only problem with change is […]

Jesus Reminds Me To Look Deeper

November 2, 2012
by Rich

Yesterday I told you about my personalized version of the bible. I think God speaks to me through RUV—Rich’s Unstandard Version. Sometimes He uses the RUV to help me see the big picture, put things in context, and see more than just one isolated verse. That happened the other night when our small group looked […]

How Many Times?

November 1, 2012
by Rich

I have this personal version of the bible. It’s called RUV—Rich’s Unstandard Version. Occasionally I encounter a conversation with Jesus in RUV when I’m trying to make sense of words from the real bible. Jesus and His friends are hanging out around a fire. Peter leans over and says, “Don’t you ever get tired of […]

Mission: Share

Fear makes it easier to wish you could than to hope you can. The second part of the RICH’S RIDE mission statement says: Speak to a variety of audiences about hope, possibility, and God’s faithfulness. But “speak” is really the wrong word, and words matter. Using the wrong word in a mission statement can get […]

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