It should come as no surprise to you that I'm struggling to see how the church (or faith) as a whole can do a better job at connecting with our postmodern society. In an attempt to eliminate the word "can't" from my vocabulary, I am doing what I can to contribute to a new movement to help re-integrate or re-introduce faith to folks. To that end, I reached out to some people in the church about literature regarding this, and there sadly isn't much. However, there is still some. In particular, I was recommended to check out this series of books called FRAMES. This series of nine books analyzes different topics regarding modern society in short, concise books. Books that contain a lot of information portrayed in neat graphical forms.

I struggle to write this post because I don't want my words to be misunderstood. I don't want somebody to read this as a means to put down the church or ever give it a chance, as that's the last thing I want. I'm not willing to say that the institutional church as we know it today is a failure. But for as many drafts as I've written about this topic, I couldn't not publish it.

Think about all the things you pray for and all the ways in which you've been told to pray. Of course, there's the Lord's Prayer. There's also the ACTS acronym of Adoration-Confession-Thanksgiving-Supplication. And for you early 2000s church folk, how could we ever forget the prayer of Jabez?? Oh yeah, those nostalgia juices are flowing now! There's nothing inherently wrong with any of these prayers. In fact, I use the free Echo app to remind me every two hours to pray using the ACTS acronym. But as good as those prayer models are, there is something rarely called out. Something mentioned in the Bible over and over, yet we hardly ever make an explicit note of it.

I've been thinking a lot about my faith lately. Mostly because if I want to reintroduce (or newly introduce) this faith to you all, I want to be able to clearly articulate why I think the Christian faith is important. And because you are intelligent people, I'm not settling for the typical answers likes...

Psychology is an interesting thing. Interesting in the fact that it doesn't always align with what seems like common sense. We, as humans, are more apt to act out the the experiences of our past than to avoid them. The son of the alcoholic dad becomes the alcoholic dad. The girl who was raped sexually abuses a child as an adult. Naturally, it's hard for me to understand because I have not lived through this. In my mind, I would think that one would do everything they can to avoid becoming the monster they once encountered. Sadly, that's not true in many cases. There is good news, though: we are not condemned to make the same choices as those who have wronged us. We can take a stand and choose to be better.

There's no doubt that the outcome of the recent election had arguably the most divisive outcome in American history. People have not been afraid to voice their anger and concerns about Trump's election on social media. From what I've seen, the most vocalization has come from the left, and I honestly haven't seen a lot of overt support from the right. (That's another topic altogether.) What has quietly gone unaddressed is another issue that has stemmed from the election: a Christian civil war. As somebody who cares for the church, this something I definitely think needs addressed sooner rather than later.

Well, folks, we've made it another year, and what a year it has been. It simultaneously went by really quickly but also really "slow" in a way, too. Slow in the sense that this was a very big year for me. There is a lot to be grateful for, and given that I think gratitude is a key competency, I think it's only appropriate to spend this Thanksgiving expressing my gratitude for 2016.

Even though I don't work in a church, it's no secret that I have very close ties to the church. I attended undergrad at a Christian university, so most of my friends are pastors. My wife works at our church. I volunteer in two areas at the church. So it's pretty safe to say that me and the church are like PB&J. (I'll let you make the call whether I'm the peanut butter or the jelly.) Let's face facts: in many senses, the church is a business. Granted, it's a nonprofit, but the church has employees that get paid and work in 40 hour increments. Most pastors I know, since they work Sundays, take off a Monday or a Friday each week, so it's not particularly as if they're working this vast amount of overtime. The church is also very reflective of the government in the way it gets its income. The government gets its income from taxes, and the church gets its income from tithes and offerings, which is very synonymous with taxes. Despite the fact t...

The time is 1:13am. Sleep won't come to me as my eyes remain glued to CNN watching the nation elect its next president. At this time, it appears that Donald Trump has won, so Clinton's campaign manager, John Podesta, appeared in front of the crowd at Clinton's HQ to encourage people to go home and get sleep as the final votes continue to roll in. Meanwhile on CNN, Corey Lewandowski, furiously shared his frustrations about Clinton's no show expressing that Trump would not be shown the same mercy of the tables were turned. Regardless of where you land on this argument, the words shared by CNN pundit Van Jones will stick in my mind as words that extend beyond the election: "Where's the grace gonna come from? It's got to come from ordinary people." No matter your feelings on anything else Van Jones shared tonight, this rings so true. And powerful. Does the president, any president, have an influence on our lives? Sure. But you know who has a stronger ...

I got called un-Christian today. Now, I'm purposefully going to conceal the details of the person and situation because I do not seek to shame him, but I still tell this story because I learned a big lesson today that I think we can all learn from. (I will share that this was not a work-related situation, and I only share that in case my employers read this post.) This person approached me about doing two tasks for his benefit that I personally did not think are all that important. He actually pulled me away from another important task I was he saw me working from (for my wife) to explain his concern. The conversation quickly devolved into an argument where he accused me of being un-Christian. I'm not going to lie: I did not handle that situation the best. At the time, I was infuriated, and while I didn't fully backlash on him, I was definitely not nice about it. To that end, I do regret how that conversation went. I wish I would have kept in mind what I'm ...

The top of my iPhone screen currently says 4:04am. It's not like I set an alarm to wake up at 4:00am. Or that I've particularly gotten plenty of sleep. In fact, I went to sleep at about 10:30pm last night, which is much later than I normally go to bed. It's not as if our bedroom is too hot or anything, too. Our thermostat indicates it is a comfy 72 degrees in our bedroom, and, like most nights, the ceiling fan is spinning in full force above our heads. There's no doubt though, I'm not getting back to sleep.

I did my undergrad at Lincoln Christian University (LCU). For those of you unfamiliar with LCU, it is a legitimate Christian university. It's not one of those that have heritage in Christianity but basically looks and functions like a secular school today. No, it's very focused on Christian ministry. Just look at some of the majors: Preaching ministry Youth ministry Worship ministry I originally went to LCU with the intentions of becoming a full-time church pastor, and so I majored in preaching ministry for the first two years. Long story short, I found I wasn't really cut out for it, so I switched to Business Administration. (One of the few majors there that isn't specifically church occupational.) I really appreciated a lot of my education. It was interesting to get everything filtered through a Christian perspective. But it was also a bit of a detriment.

Well, that's probably a name you heard in a while! For those of you not familiar with that name, Rob Bell was (and kind of still is?) a big name in the Christian community. He is the former megachurch founder and pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church, wrote widely read books Sex God  and Velvet Elvis , and is probably most widely known for his NOOMA video series. In 2011, Rob Bell had a big falling out with the Christian community following the release of his book, Love Wins . In that book, he contended that people would be able to accept Jesus and enter heaven after death in addition to before death, which many people misconstrued as universalism. (Which is not particularly right... but I can see why people would draw that conclusion.) Having attended a Christian school at the time, I was right in the thick of the controversy. People freaked out. Having been looked at as a Christian hero in the community for the longest time, people were floored with the sentiments shared in Love...

When I started this blog, I made sure I was very intentional about what I wanted this blog to be. I even dedicated the title of this blog to that idea. LYEATT: Leave Your Ego at the Threshold (Door). I don’t know everything. Heck, I don’t know a lot of things. In all the time I have spent thinking, I have come to only one single idea that should be universally embraced by everybody: we, individually, have no way of possessing all the knowledge in the world. That may seem obvious, but I’m convinced that this lies at the heart of almost all the world’s problems. Our narcissism leads us to craft our own narratives and focus on that which appeals to and feeds that narrative. If you think I’m talking about religion or social matters, you’re only partially right. But really, this applies to everything. It is EXTREMELY applicable to the business world, too. Because what happens when we fixate our minds on a single idea?

One of the things I hear most often in the Christian community is about “God’s plan”. Stuff like… This went well because it was in God’s plan. I’m not doing this or that because I’m waiting for God to reveal his plan for my life. My parent getting cancer and dying must fit into God’s plan. We act as if God has laid out a single track for our lives that we are supposed to follow. That, somehow, he will divinely inspire us to follow this single track, and we will live happily ever after. The end. But how right is that thinking?

Prayer is a weird thing. I don't get it. I won't pretend like I understand it. It's something I will probably always struggle with on some level.  When it comes to learning about and practicing prayer, I have done it all. I've tried prayer journaling in a physical journal, prayer journaling in a virtual journal, praying along with the saints like St. Augustine. You name it, I've tried it. Yet it's something I'll never stop doing.

The next time you go to a church, sit toward the back. Or better yet, sit at the front of a balcony if the church has one. When the sermon begins, watch the people sitting around you. I can pretty well guarantee you’ll see people tuning out in various ways. People browsing Facebook on their smartphones. People napping. Even people just clearly staring off into space. Let’s be brutally honest: the traditional sermon model is broken.