1. What a Christian organization says it believes does not make it a Christian organization. How it treats its employees and how it makes decisions make it like Christ, if that is what they mean by “Christian.” Many tend to use the concept of “ministry” as its branding to the watching world but on the inside they make business decisions just like any other for-profit business. Every Christian organization should be led by shepherds who are willing to care for the souls of the disciples entrusted to them. But this is far too often not the case. And this is why leaders are able to do unrighteousness for so long even within so-called Christian institutions.
2. You can simultaneously see something horrible happening in the culture, know it’s wrong, and still be unafraid.
Just like Jesus.
3. I enjoy just knowing baseball is being played even when I’m not watching it.
4. We as the people of God should be very slow to applaud when someone famous within our own circles publicly announces they are leaving: their spouses, their faith, their denomination, their ministry, etc. And we should be even slower to applaud when they made a great deal of money from which they are leaving. It all feels too much like the ways of the world and its desire to deconstruct everything all the time world without end.
Applaud when they are leaving behind their own sins.
5. All counseling is discipleship to something to someone.
6. Most writing in Christendom is so poor these days because these days no one reads the poets or Kerouac anymore.
7. I’ve been reading a lot about Bob Dylan lately, surrounding myself with his songs and writings too. I think I am on book six this year. One thing I really love which I have seen in him which I have seen very little of in this world is his ability to zig when everyone else is zagging. When everyone else was celebrating him as a the voice of a generation, he stopped speaking for his generation. When everyone tried to compete with his genre-changing rock albums of the ’60s, he recorded two country albums. Pastors could learn a lot from him. Heck, we all could.
8. A phenomenon on Twitter is what I now call “the pile on.” It’s when someone tweets something and then dozens if not hundreds then pile on that person with criticism at the least or insult at the worst. They either use replies or retweets to do this. And by “they” I mean me sometimes. I’ve been a part of this phenomenon but I no longer want to be.
I am named after Matthew, the tax-collector, whom Jesus called and did not pile on.
9. Someone asked me recently why I loved vinyl records and I knew the answer but I could not put what I was thinking and feeling into words on the spot. Here is my answer –– listening to music on vinyl is more like sitting down to a nice relaxed meal and listening to music using a streaming service is like fast food in your car while your driving somewhere you don’t really want to go.
10. I consider it a good thing when the Bible offends my sensibilities.
Echoes and Stars 
#4. . . My heart has been broken by the number of people that seem to be “deconstructing” and leaving the orthodox faith for a sort of spirituality. If they did so quietly, I guess that would be one thing, but they do so publicly as if desiring the applause of the world and in order to take others with them.
#6. . . Have you listened to Andy Squyre’s “Poet Priest” album? Would be curious to hear your review.
You are the second person to recommend that album to me.
For 6 I’d say reading poets is good but I never got the appeal of Kerouac or the Beatniks at all.