rogershenk.com

I’m writing from the Millenium Hotel (Iditarod Race Headquarters) in Anchorage, Alaska. I’ve never been to AK before, and wouldn’t you know it, they’re having a warm spell. It’s actually 33 degrees right now. The day before I got here it was 17 below. Go figger. This Florida boy wanted to feel what real cold was, but I guess it’ll have to wait for another journey someplace.

I’m up here on a one week tour with the Kate White Band. We played a women’s prison night before last, and they were such an encouragement. We came away stoked by how receptive and responsive they were.

The next morning I was reflecting on the experience. If we had played a church, we would’ve come away saying, “Wow! That church is really on fire for God!” But instead we marveled at how (more…)

“We should be engaging the culture in a redemptive relationship where radical grace can be lived out, perhaps even more than sung about.” I made this statement a while back while booking a christian artist to perform at Bekah’s Barrista. And she asked me, more or less, what in the world I was talking about. Good for her, I needed to be kept honest.

So here are my thoughts.

It’s admittedly a somewhat reactionary statement about the evangelical christian culture at large, which has for too long been treating people as evangelism projects. Draw a crowd, make the pitch, bring them to a point of decision, and…

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Our church meets in a school. And several weeks ago, when we arrived there was sort of a stinky smell. Common fare for a middle school. But as the morning went on, the halls smelled like someone had tossed a poopy diaper in a trash can somewhere and forgotten to empty it.

By Noon, it smelled like something had died. If you went outside and recalibrated your smeller, it was almost stifling to come back in. It was ugly in there. And we had no idea what it was.

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