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The Money P.I.T.: When Your Wallet Becomes a Trap

“Americanism is using money you haven’t earned to buy things you don’t need to impress people you don’t like.” – Robert Quillen, 1928, Detroit Free Press

Sound familiar? We’ve all heard variations of this quote, yet somehow we keep falling into the same trap. We throw money into what I call “The Money P.I.T.” – and no, I’m not talking about that house that needs endless repairs or the boat you swore would bring you joy (though boat owners, you know what I mean about those two best days!).

We Have a Problem

Let me hit you with some sobering statistics:

  • American households carry $18.2 trillion in debt – that’s $53,000 per person
  • Over 11 million children in America live below the poverty line
  • Over 20 million U.S. adults are problem gamblers
  • Americans spent $264 billion on gambling in 2023 alone
  • Among problem gamblers, suicide rates are 15 times the national average

Our relationship with money isn’t just unhealthy – it’s literally killing us.

Continue reading → The Money P.I.T.: When Your Wallet Becomes a Trap
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Who Owns Your Stuff? A Kingdom Economics Perspective

Starting a new series on Kingdom Economics—and yes, we’re talking about money. But this isn’t about guilt trips or fundraising schemes. This is about discovering a theology of wealth that flies in the face of the American dream and get-rich-quick schemes.

From Street Rat to Saint: The George Mueller Story

Picture this: Europe in the 1800s. Mugshots of children—boys in suits, girls barely teenagers—arrested for stealing food, money, anything to survive on the mean streets. One such child was born in Germany around this time. His mother died when he was 14, and he turned to a life of crime, even stealing from his own father.

But this young man, George Mueller, encountered something that changed everything: the Word of God. Through a Bible study group at university, Scripture got hold of him and transformed him from the inside out.

Continue reading → Who Owns Your Stuff? A Kingdom Economics Perspective
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Live Your Legacy: Making the Most of Your “Dash”

What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?

As I’ve entered my mid-to-late thirties, I find myself doing more reflection. There comes a point in life where you attend more funerals than weddings, and funerals have a way of capturing the essence of a person’s life. They make you think about what really matters.

If you’ve ever walked through an old cemetery, you’ve probably noticed something: almost every tombstone has two dates with a dash in between. That little dash represents all the time we spend alive on earth. The question is: what are you doing with your dash?

Continue reading → Live Your Legacy: Making the Most of Your “Dash”
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Finding Forgiveness: When the Church Hurts and Grace Still Heals

From a sermon by Daniel Lee and Lucas Johnson

The Foundation of Forgiveness

We’re all walking around wounded and hurt. Pain alerts us that something’s wrong—whether it’s the “good pain” of growth or the sharp ache of genuine injury. We all know we’ve done things that are wrong, and we’ve all been wronged by others. So how do we find wholeness? How do we break the vicious cycle of guilt, shame, and woundedness?

The answer comes down to one word: forgive.

Continue reading → Finding Forgiveness: When the Church Hurts and Grace Still Heals
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“Your Proud Waves Stop Here”: Setting Healthy Boundaries

Part of our “Becoming Whole” series exploring identity, purpose, and belonging

The Foundation of Boundaries

Who am I? Why am I here? Where do I fit in? These fundamental questions of identity, purpose, and belonging follow us through every stage of life. As Christians, our framework for answering them should be rooted in the greatest commandments: to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

But here’s what many of us miss—that little phrase “as yourself.” We’re called to love ourselves too, which means setting healthy boundaries.

God’s Blueprint for Boundaries

Boundaries aren’t just good advice—they’re baked into creation itself. In Proverbs, wisdom declares: “I was there when he set the limit for the sea, so that the waters would not violate his command.” In Job 38, God says, “You may come this far, but no further, your proud waves stop here.”

Continue reading → “Your Proud Waves Stop Here”: Setting Healthy Boundaries
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Finding God’s Plan for Your Life: When Your Dreams Don’t Match His Design

Originally preached at Tulip Street Church by Lucas Johnson

My plan was never to be a minister. I went to nursing school, dreaming of getting my nurse practitioner’s license and moving to Denver—somewhere with mountains, hip coffee shops, and definitely not Mitchell, Indiana. I’d grown up here and wanted something different.

But while in nursing school, I couldn’t escape ministry. My dad kept volunteering me to fill in at local churches, I started a Sunday school, became a deacon—and no matter how hard I tried to run from it, ministry kept pulling me back. Like Jonah fleeing from Nineveh, I was running from God’s call.

Continue reading → Finding God’s Plan for Your Life: When Your Dreams Don’t Match His Design
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Who Am I? Finding Your True Identity in Christ

“Who are you?”

It’s a simple question that can stop us in our tracks. Whether it’s Simba asking Rafiki in The Lion King or our own hearts wrestling with this fundamental question, the search for identity is universal.

The Big Questions We All Face

Throughout life, we revisit three essential questions that shape our existence:

  • Who am I? (Identity)
  • Why am I here? (Purpose)
  • Where do I fit? (Belonging)

These questions aren’t just for teenagers or young adults. Life changes, seasons shift, and who you were as a high school student isn’t necessarily who you are as a parent, professional, or retiree. If we don’t answer these questions for ourselves, the world will try to answer them for us—and we’ll end up drifting through life.

Continue reading → Who Am I? Finding Your True Identity in Christ
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Characteristics of Christ | LOVE

A 40 Day Journey to Becoming Like the One We Follow

Day 3: Love (John 13:34-35)

The first Fruit of the Spirit in the life of a believer is Love. If we don’t love, then we’re nothing, says Paul. But love as a concept has gotten so watered down over the centuries. Everyone desires to love and be loved, but we can hardly define it. The literal dictionary definition of love is, “an intense feeling of deep affection.” But that hardly suffices to describe the connection between a husband and a wife or a parent and a child. Love is definitely “more than a feeling” – thank you, Boston.

Paul describes aspects of love – it’s patient, kind, not rude, not self-seeking, etc. John takes it a step further and flat out says, “God is love.” The reverse of that statement is not true, however. Love is not God. But God’s very nature is summed up in the word “Love.”

“The Lord–the Lord is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love and truth, maintaining love to a thousand generations…” (Exodus 34:6-7).

God’s ultimate demonstration of his own love is Jesus. It was love that lead Jesus to touch the leper, to defend the adulteress, to bless the children, to wash feet. It was love that lead him to the cross and held him there.

Our standard of love is no longer “whatever feels right in the moment.” Jesus is our standard for love. We are called to love one another as Christ has loved us. There is no greater love than laying down one’s life for one’s friends–Jesus even laid down his life for his enemies.

May we be so filled with the love of God through Christ that we can’t help but let it overflow to others. Because without that love, nothing else matters.

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Dunning-Kruger: A Little Knowledge Is a Dangerous Thing

Have you heard of cognitive biases?

Everyone has them. If you think you don’t, then that’s called the Blind-Spot Bias.

In some ways we couldn’t function without them. Cognitive biases are kind of like shortcuts in the brain. We take in so much information throughout the day that we have to find a quick, somewhat efficient way to make sense of it all. Add to that the fact that we are highly social beings and we desire almost above everything else to be a part of an “in group.” So we will overlook and ignore some things in order to keep our own personal beliefs and actions in line with the group to which we want to belong.

I would argue that most cognitive biases are not inherently bad, so long as we recognize them and can become more aware of when we are relying on them too heavily. But if we are aren’t self-aware, if we just kind of live on autopilot and let our cognitive biases take too much control, then what starts out as a shortcut can quickly turn into a train wreck.

As a Christian and one who pays attention to the social fabric of our world, I am simply astounded by  the types of cognitive biases I see derailing our lives and conversations, especially online. Let’s try to take a faith-informed look at some of the more common biases so we can become more aware of how they affect our lives and what we can do about it.
__________
I’M NO EXPERT, BUT…


One of the more interesting cognitive biases is named the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It’s a psychological phenomenon where the less a person knows about a particular subject, the more confident they are in their perceived understanding. In other words, they know just enough about something to be dangerous with it. But if they actually put in the time and effort to thoroughly study a topic, their overall confidence decreases with more knowledge. At some point along the way, as they approach expert status, their confidence slowly climbs back up. The graph looks like this:

If you pay attention to all the different voices coming our way about this pandemic, you will see the Dunning-Kruger Effect in full swing. Those who know just a little bit are often the loudest, most confident, with the most certainty in their statements. But actual experts in the field speak with seemingly more uncertainty. They aren’t as apt to give straight-forward answers, and they readily admit that there are a lot of unknowns. Because here’s the thing about experts – ONLY EXPERTS KNOW WHAT THE UNKNOWNS ARE. And if they really are experts, they will admit where the knowledge base is unclear on any given topic.

Unfortunately, this preys on our bias towards ascribing credibility to those who sound confident in their arguments. Plenty of falsehoods are being spread from loud, confident-sounding novices, and that gets our attention.

As people of faith, we should always be somewhat skeptical of anyone claiming to have all the answers, especially if they are simply trying to out-shout the other voices. Jesus often got into arguments with the religious leaders of his day – men who knew just enough about the Scriptures to be dangerous. There is a level of humility that comes with true knowledge. If anyone thinks they have “arrived” and know all there is to know about a certain topic, then that’s when we must be on our guard.

One of the best examples of this is when Paul went through his conversion. He started off as a know-it-all Pharisee. Then the resurrected Jesus rocked his world and showed him how little he actually knew. This same Paul would go on to write, “I determined to know nothing among you except Christ and him crucified.”

When it comes to the pandemic, health and safety, or even religion, I would rather listen to the humble expert than the overconfident novice.
__________

For a quick guide to more cognitive biases, I recommend this article from Business Insider: 61 Cognitive Biases that Screw Up Everything We Do

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FAITHFUL | 40 Days of Focus, Day 14

 

“You shall not commit adultery.”
(Exodus 20:14)

We’ve all heard the statistic that 50% of marriages end in divorce. Actually, that’s a myth. First, in no way does that mean your particular marriage only has a 50% chance of lasting a lifetime. It simply means that at one point in our nation’s history (a couple decades ago now) for every 2 marriages in a given year, there was 1 divorce. The divorce rate was half that of the marriage rate.

This phenomenon occurred on the heels of court rulings that gave women more authority and control in filing for divorce proceedings. When women were given the chance, they were finally able to end a bad marriage. Imagine being stuck in an abusive marriage, or knowing your spouse is sleeping around, and not being able to do anything about it.

In reality, however, the divorce rate has been on the decline – dropping around 18% over the past decade? Why? Because newly married young people are staying together longer. True, fewer young adults are currently married than ever before (functioning under the mindset of ‘if it’s just going to end in divorce, then why bother?’). But those who do choose to get married are remaining more faithful to each other than comparative couples of previous generations.

This may come as no surprise, but infidelity is still listed as the top specific reason for divorce at nearly 30%. Unfortunately those statistics are not much different for couples inside the church.

The positive intention behind the prohibition is to uphold and honor the covenant of marriage. God railed against the apathetic treatment of wedding vows in the prophetic book of Malachi.

Has not the one God made you? You belong to him in body and spirit. And what does the one God seek? Godly offspring. So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful to the wife of your youth.
“The man who hates and divorces his wife,” says the Lord, the God of Israel, “does violence to the one he should protect,” says the Lord Almighty.
So be on your guard, and do not be unfaithful.
(Malachi 2:15-16)

Did you catch that line? The man who hates and divorces his wife does violence to the one he should protect. This is where we need to speak wisdom into the subject of adultery, unfaithfulness, and divorce. Adultery does not JUST mean sexual immorality. Adultery is not JUST about sex. Adultery is about breaking a covenant. Israel was often called an “adulterous” nation for breaking their covenant with God by worshiping other gods, mistreating the poor, abusing the sacrificial system, taking advantage of people through unbalanced weights and measures, etc.

Israel was in a covenant with God. They broke that covenant and were labeled “adulterers.” Marriage is not just a financial or social institution. It’s a covenantal arrangement between a man, a woman, and God. To break that covenant is to commit adultery – by sleeping around, by abusing your spouse, by neglecting them, and by “doing violence against the one you should protect.” Marriage is so much more than sex. So is adultery.

In the days of Jesus there was a great debate on this issue. Some took the side of Rabbi Hillel who taught that a man could divorce his wife for basically any reason. He emphasized the phrase “who becomes displeasing to him.” Others took the side of Rabbi Shammai who taught that marital unfaithfulness was the only legal grounds for divorce. Whose side did Jesus take?

Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
“Why then,” they asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?”
Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
(Matthew 19:3-9)

Even though Jesus wasn’t married, he upheld the importance of marriage. Faithfulness to one’s spouse goes hand in hand with one’s faithfulness to God. That’s why Jesus said such radical things as this:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.”
(Matthew 5:27-30)

In other words, don’t even think about cheating on your wife. Don’t even think about sleeping around with men who aren’t your husband. Because eventually thoughts will become actions. People often leave their partners in the head long before they leave them in the bed.

You can see why these commandments are so important. God wanted to ensure a thriving society for his people. When cultures fail to honor their family commitments, when they treat human life as expendable, and when they cease to uphold their wedding vows, society begins to break down. Life, marriage, family – these things should be honored and kept sacred for our own good and the good of society. This is why I try to live up to Jesus’ standard and put into practice the words of Paul in Ephesians:

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church—for we are members of his body. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
(Ephesians 5:25-33)

_____________________________

Have you heard people toss around the “50%” statistic in relation to marriage and divorce? How does it make you feel about marriage? Is it worth fighting for? Or is it not worth bothering?

Do you think that healthy marriages are a vital part of a healthy society? Why or why not?

In what specific ways can you embody Christ’s sacrificial love in your marriage?