IBC Blog

Formed

Gardening

Is this a perennial or annual? How much sun is needed? Oh, what about our dogs… is this one of the poisonous plants?

These questions have been part of springtime conversation at the Barnett home as my wife, Amber, and I envision new gardens for our front and back landscape. Before I was pastor, I worked for a landscape crew in Denver, Colorado that specialized in fine gardening. Now, I’m no Master Gardener, but since that time I’ve always enjoyed working with my hands and in the yard.

Formed

Suffering and Glory

Three weeks ago my wife and I put down our sweet Border Collie, Maverick.

It has been the darkest day of my life thus far and it was the hardest decision I have ever made. Putting him down reminded me of the sting of death. I hate death.

Like me, maybe you’ve been acquainted with death of a loved one. Maybe you’ve experienced some type of suffering because of the broken world we live in, because of your own sin, or because of the sins of others.

Formed

Judgment & Persecution

About two years ago I was able to have a conversation with a cancer survivor. What she shared with me was new to my understanding. Having cancer alone was not painful to her at all. The pain came when the treatment began. She expressed the agony of chemo and its effects on her body as the doctors were seeking to heal her from her sickness. Her testimony is that she was able to endure the treatments and be rid of the cancer. However, she could have made the decision to avoid the pain and skip the treatment. But the result would have been fatal.

Formed

Revelation 7

It was the summer of 2020 when I discovered a group of people out of Atlanta that I never knew I needed. Like a lot of you, being quarantined at home as a family brought new rhythms and routines in our everyday life. If every screen time rule we had in the Harris house was going to be broken, let’s at least break it with something beneficial. Enter live worship sets on YouTube.

Max volume. Living room cleared out. Let’s worship.

Formed

Spilling the Tea

Red letter words in some editions of the Bible, meaning they are words of Jesus. They are recorded in the gospels of Matthew and Mark. In each of these gospels, they are an answer to a question from a teacher of the law. He was a Jewish religious scholar, and he noted that Jesus had answered other questions wisely, so he asked him, “What is the most important of all the commandments?” He said:

Formed

Is your media consuming you?

We live in a world that is absolutely saturated with media – like soggy bread. It’s a rare moment when we don’t have a screen either in our sight or within our reach, each one of us connected to all the content in the world. A nearly endless list of articles, videos, songs, social media posts, podcasts, pundits, and influencers are begging for your attention – did you know social media algorithms are literally set up to keep you in their platform for as long as possible? They will send you notifications when they have noticed a trend of your usage. Their technology is able to target you; it thinks like this: Madi is normally scrolling at 3:12 p.m. when she’s experiencing an afternoon energy lull, let’s target her with notifications since she is currently not scrolling.