Pastor Brandon

06/13/2026

06/11/2026

Some Christians love that word.
“Abomination.”

And usually, we know exactly who they're pointing at. 🏳️‍🌈

They say it with such certainty.
Such... self-righteousness.

But in Scripture, “abomination” does not mean:

“People I’m allowed to despise while feeling righteous about it.”

It means something detestable to God.

Something that violates His holiness, justice, and heart.

And Proverbs 6 gets specific on what God considers abominations.

He points to pride.
Lies.
Violence.
Scheming.
Eagerness to do harm.
False accusations.
And people who stir up division.

You know…

The stuff we rename “strength,” “strategy,” “telling it like it is,” or “fighting for our side” when it benefits the people we like.

Now come on.

Some of the same voices calling other people “abominations” will read Proverbs 6, see their favorite leader staring back at them, and somehow walk away worried about drag queens.

But the second Proverbs 6 starts sounding like their favorite leader?

Suddenly grace flows like a river.
You know...in one direction only.

“He’s a flawed vessel.”
“God used King David.”
“Nobody’s perfect.”

Which is true.
And also comically convenient.

David repented when confronted.
He changed his ways.
He didn't double-down.
That part gets left out.

Now yes, Leviticus uses “abomination” in a section about sexual conduct. We shouldn’t pretend it doesn’t.

But even under the most legalistic, conservative theology, Scripture never gives us permission to call human beings “abominations.”

So if pride, lies, violence, false witness, and division barely raise our blood pressure when they’re on our team, but someone else’s life sends us into a holy conniption, our faith may be discipled more by tribe than God.

Maybe the question is not:
“Who is the abomination?”

Maybe the question is:
“Why do we only recognize abomination when it is safely located in someone else?”

Because Jesus had a phrase for religious people who looked clean on the outside while corruption lived underneath:

Whitewashed tombs.

So maybe we should ask:

Are we genuinely offended by what God calls detestable?

Or just by the people our tribe taught us to target? 😉

06/11/2026

Jesus and John Wayne is one of the few books I know I’ll keep re-reading.

Kristin Kobes DuMez is a historian whose work focuses on gender, religion, and politics. She's not a pastor or pundit with a "hot take."

I was raised in the Church, and so much of what Kristin describes felt so familiar. This book helped me understand the slow, dangerous drift I had experienced in real time but couldn’t always see clearly.

It’s still, by far, the best book I’ve ever read on the subject.

It gets mentioned in our comment section often, sometimes weekly. So if you’ve ever thought, “What is this book everyone keeps talking about?” — this is me gently nudging it across the table to you.

Highly recommend.

Read slowly, but highlight aggressively. 😄

15 black-and-white illustrations

06/11/2026

I’ve heard thousands of stories involving “church hurt.”

I’m grateful people trusted me with them.

I just hate that they happened.

Our minds jump to the extremes.
But in 99.9% of the stories I’ve heard, the harm wasn’t physical or criminal.

It was relational.
Spiritual. Emotional.
Systemic.

I once heard a pastor say in a staff meeting, “The Church is the Bride of Christ. And I don’t like my bride criticized—so why would Jesus?”

It sounded holy.
But it was one of the most dangerous things I’ve ever heard leave a pastor’s lips.

Because what that really means is:
“Don’t hold us accountable.”
“Only positive feedback allowed.”
“If you speak up, you’re being disloyal - Jesus says so.”

When churches refuse to acknowledge harm, they don’t stop causing it.

They just replace the people who leave.

In 1983, when my parents divorced, my Baptist church treated me, a broken 11-year-old boy, as less than.

My church friends vanished.
Invitations stopped.
I was unwelcome.

As if divorce was contagious.

I spent 1983 without a dad — and without the friends I desperately needed.

That scar still stings.

As an adult, the hurt changed forms.
As a pastor within it.
As a ministry leader.
As a congregant.

Some were minor.
Some major.
Some… “legally questionable.”

When my wife and I finally spoke out at our last church, I spent 30 minutes... in tears... sharing what we’d endured.

But the lead pastor refused to hear it. Apparently, he saw it as "disloyal".

And just like that... it was my wife and I that were the problem.

If a community claims to follow Jesus, it deserves more accountability—not less.

And when a church treats accountability like rebellion, that’s your cue to leave.

Quickly.

So if someone tells you they were harmed by the Church, this is not the moment to defend the organization.

It’s not about you.
And it’s not about protecting “the bride.”

It’s about the wounded person sitting in front of you.

You don’t need explanations, theology, or excuses.

You need presence.
You need a listening ear.

Because the Church doesn’t lose credibility when people speak up about harm.

It loses credibility when it refuses to listen.

06/11/2026

If Jesus rejected worldly power as a temptation from Satan, why are so many Evangelicals fighting to get as much of it as possible?

As a reminder:
Satan took Jesus to a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and said:

“All of this can be yours — just bow.”

But Jesus didn’t flinch.
He didn’t negotiate.
He said no.

No to empire.
No to shortcuts.
No to a crown without a cross.

Fast forward 2,000 years…

The loudest voices claiming to represent Him?

The Evangelical Right?
The Turning Point USA and Heritage Foundation types?

They looked at the same offer of power and said:

“We’re in — because Jesus got it wrong.”

They bent the knee.
Not to Jesus —
but to a man and a movement that looks nothing like Him.

Not to humility and meekness —
but to performative, chest-thumping dominance.

Not to grace —
but to condemnation and control.

Not to truth —
but to curated, politically convenient propaganda.

Not to love —
but to fear dressed up as righteousness.

Let’s be real:
If your version of Christianity is obsessed with winning elections, dominating culture, and clinging to power over others at any cost…

You’re not following the Jesus who said no to all of that.

You’re following a golden calf —
and slapping Jesus’s name on it.

That’s the real misuse of His name.
Not cussing.

Branding.

Using the name of Jesus
to bless the power He rejected,
defend the empire He refused,
and baptize the fear He came to cast out.

That isn’t faithfulness.

It's taking the deal Satan offered...
then calling it discipleship.

06/10/2026

Almost everything gets healthier when we learn to listen.

I don’t mean smiling and nodding... while secretly loading the next thing we want to say.

I mean really listening.
Like there may be a pop quiz afterward.

As a former business executive, marriage ministry leader, current pastor, and recovering over-thinker, I’ve read a small library of leadership, relationship, theology, and self-help books.

I’ve done retreats, seminars, and enough “growth” content to choke a goat. I don’t know what that means, but I’m going with it.

Let me save you a few decades and dollars:

Above all else...

Learn to listen.

Don't just "improve" your listening -
Become a Navy SEAL level listener.

Don't wait for your turn to talk.
Don't reload your argument.
Don't mentally organize your to-do list.

Listen.
As if everything depended on it.

The leaders who impacted me most made others feel heard, not small. They listened as much as they spoke. They didn’t always agree, but I could tell they were actually absorbing what was said. They listened to understand, not to respond.

The strongest marriages I’ve seen work the same way. Not perfectly. Not magically. But consistently. Two people choosing, again and again, to understand the other before reacting. To listen long enough for the other person to feel heard and understood.

The healthiest friendships do too. Nobody has to dominate. Nobody has to disappear. Everyone gets room to be human. Everyone leaves feeling heard, seen and loved.

Maybe that’s why loneliness is at epidemic levels. Everyone is talking but nobody is listening.

Confusing volume with strength.
Speed with wisdom.
Charisma with leadership.
Being heard with being right.

But Scripture says to be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry.

Jesus described Himself as gentle and humble in heart.

Not flashy. Not domineering.
Not desperate to win every room.

Maybe listening is one of the clearest ways humility becomes visible.

Because when we truly listen, we are saying,

“You matter enough for me to slow down and hear you.”

After all the books, conferences, leadership lessons, ministry years, marriage conversations, and life experience, I keep coming back to this:

None of it matters much if we can’t get out of our own way long enough to hear the person in front of us.

Because when people feel heard, trust grows.

Work gets healthier.
Friendships get safer.
Marriages get stronger.
Communities get closer.

So, in a world where everyone is trying to win the conversation…

listening may be one of the clearest ways to love.

06/09/2026

At some point, “my beliefs” can become a prettier way of saying:

“I have a spiritual reason not to love them.”

And that should concern us.

Because Jesus never used truth as a reason to move away from people.

He used it to move closer.

Closer to the wounded.
Closer to the outsider.
Closer to the grieving.
Closer to the very people the religious had already rejected.

But too often, we turn theology into a ball and chain. We drag it behind us while insisting we’re “defending Jesus.”

Because some of us have built a faith that is more fluent in who we oppose than who Jesus embraced.

You may know some of them too... Christians that can argue for two hours about transgender athletes, immigration, pronouns, politics, and “what’s happening to this country”…

but can't name two things Jesus actually taught in the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus was not vague about what matters most.

Love God. Love your neighbor.
No asterisks.

Everything else is supposed to serve that.

Not outrank it. Not replace it.
Not become the loophole we use to avoid it.

And this is exactly what Jesus did.

Six times in Matthew 5,
Jesus said some version of:
“You have heard that it was said…”

Then He challenged the religious understanding of the day and pulled it deeper.

Jesus kept redirecting theology back to the heart of God.

Reconciliation. Mercy.
Integrity. Peacemaking.
Loving our enemies.
And a righteousness deeper than religious performance.

So maybe the question isn’t,
“Is my theology correct?”

Maybe the better question is:
“Is my theology making me look more like Jesus?”

Because if your beliefs make you colder, crueler, prouder, harder, and less capable of loving the people Jesus kept moving toward…

that’s not spiritual maturity.

That’s theological captivity.

The kind that makes us obsessed with being right about God while completely downplaying Jesus's very clear, but uncomfortable commands.

“These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
— Jesus

And Jesus didn’t come to help us justify our theological chains.

He came to break them.
He came to set captives free.
Including us.

So, if your theology needs you to love people less in order to stay “biblical,” you're likely not defending the Bible.

You're likely avoiding Jesus.

06/09/2026

Jesus taught us to pray,
“On earth as it is in heaven.”
— Matthew 6:10

That wasn’t poetry for a beautiful pre-dinner prayer.

It was an assignment.

Because if Heaven is the standard, then some things become painfully clear.

No hunger.
“They will never hunger again…” — Revelation 7:16

No sickness. No pain. No death.
No disposable people.
No outsiders.
No ethnic hierarchy.

Just “every nation, tribe, people, and language” standing together before God.
— Revelation 7:9

No moral caste system.
No “us vs. them.”
No religious sin scoreboard.

Just grace. Belonging.
Mercy. Unity. Love.

And... a whole lot of redeemed sinners standing shoulder to shoulder because none of us got there by earning it.

So when Christians pray the Lord's prayer while defending attitudes, systems, policies, or ideologies that keep people hungry, discarded, excluded, or dehumanized…

that isn’t faith.
It’s performance.

“These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
— Jesus, (Matthew 15:8)

Jesus didn’t teach us this prayer so we could sound spiritual... while staying comfortable.

He taught it because God’s will done in Heaven is the very thing we’re called to pursue on Earth.

That’s why Jesus fed the hungry.
Healed the sick.
Touched the outcast.
Welcomed the foreigner.
Defended the vulnerable.

And said whatever we do for “the least of these,” we do for Him.
— Matthew 25:35–40

If God’s will is done perfectly in Heaven... then anything that contradicts that reality on Earth should bother the people who claim to follow Jesus.

The uncomfortable truth is this:

If we actually meant that prayer, our priorities would look different.

Our churches would look different.

And yes, our politics would look different.

Maybe the problem isn’t
that we don’t understand Heaven.

Maybe the problem is that
Heaven keeps contradicting our politics.