I've never seen myself as a perfectionist. I don't need things to be just right or second guess for so long that things never sees the light of day. However, I do pride myself of being a fairly driven person. One way this often shows up is that I'm—almost always—early. Missing deadlines, being late to meetings, delayed arrivals; these things sound like scary episodes of The Twilight Zone. Last week, we didn't release a newsletter. It wasn't late. It wasn't delayed. It just di

I had the pleasure of being a guest on the Field Preachers podcast this past week. I've been a listener of the podcast for a while and it was bizarre to have the script flipped on me. Paul Nixon and Beth Estock asked some excellent questions and I highly recommend giving it a listen and letting me know your thoughts. During the interview, Beth hit on a point that almost always comes up with Checkpoint Church. Any time I mention this strange and awesome community, i hear the s

I'm an Enneagram 5 wing 4. After you get done rolling your eyes about even bringing up the Enneagram, let me tell you a bit about a 5w4. We are given the title of 'The Philosopher' or the much more radical 'The Iconoclast.' To save you the Google search for that dramatic term, Iconoclast refers to one who deconstructs beliefs. Yeah, you read that right. I am an actual pastor who has the personality type that deconstructs beliefs. Talk about inconvenient. Often, the 5w4 is att

Recently, I've been invited to share the methodology behind Checkpoint. Folks who are intimately involved and those who are completely outside of my normal sphere of influence have asked some very important questions. How is Checkpoint actually like church? If we're willing to be honest, we don't have a unified definition of church anywhere. Odds are you've never put much thought into what actually makes church church. Is it the place? The people? The events? The pastor? The