I’ve met a lot of people in my young life, but, yesterday I met a fellow that will not soon be forgotten. I mean the guy told me to grab his goatee, he’s a good man.  Charlie Hall is a Singer/Songwriter/Worship Leader/Pastor and now a friend. We had the chance to hang for a few hours yesterday as he and my friend Phil Wickham are on tour together and the tour stopped here at Cornerstone.

Charlie is one of those guys that lives like I hope I live. He lives in the midst of his story, believing God, believing the scripture, making his declaration through the art of song and doing everything with Christ in him to live it out. A couple things really stood out to me from what I observed in my time with Charlie and I’d love to share them with you.

THERE is a video at the bottom of this post that YOU HAVE TO WATCH. This post is a good read too!!

Today is Ash Wednesday and it's been a great day so far. It's been a full day of reflection, discussion and conversation about this mysterious God that I've put my life towards (ash on head and all!). It started by going to Ash Wednesday Mass at my dear friends Parish called Mt. Carmel in Tempe. The homily was confronting. The priest talked about how we are so afraid to be alone. He called us 'cell phone junkies' and called us out on the reality of how desperately afraid our culture is of being alone, even those of us in Christ. We don't know how, we're scared to, we're resistant to, we're afraid of and we fill our lives with so many things that keep us connected to people so that we won't have to be alone. Introvert or Extrovert we all have 'things' that we do that keep even our minds occupied. I was confronted by the Holy Spirit in time of reflection, during church this morning, to prioritize more time to just soak in His presence and commune with Jesus. Is this just me or are you with me on this one?

(Note: This is a re-mix of a post I wrote in November of last year. I'm feeling compelled to toss it out here again.) 

It seems that across the world, word worship is beginning to look more like idolatry and less like a really cool hobby.

Now, I’ll admit I am in love with words. I collect interesting ones, put them on display, use them to my advantage. I’ve spent a lifetime building things out of words, and I’ve always thought I had a lot to show for it. But I think I might be ready for change.

Why this new distrust for words? After an evening of stomachaches scrolling around the internet, I realized that the arena of words has essentially become our national temple. It is here that everyone has started to worship his own prose. Let me post my clever comeback. Listen to my witty retort for your narrow-minded thinking. Watch me impress you with my intellectual rant—aren’t you jealous?