Pastor Brandon

09/16/2025

If your theology stops you from loving people, it’s time to recalibrate your faith to the words and ways of Jesus.

09/15/2025

09/15/2025

If we can arbitrarily change the name to "Gulf of America", changing the name "Monday" doesn't seem altogether unreasonable.

09/14/2025

While I never met Charlie personally, if his faith is in any way aligned with mine, I suspect that he wouldn't want his tragic death to ever be used as a smokescreen to silence the cries of sex-trafficking victims.

09/13/2025

Amen.

09/12/2025

People are hard to hate close up.
That’s why so many would rather keep their distance.
It’s easier to hate a label than a person.

And the labels? They get spoon-fed to us—
by politicians who need enemies,
media outlets that need clicks,
our crazy uncles with Facebook accounts,
and sadly, even some churches.

But when we move in?
When our love outweighs our opinions?

When we celebrate our differences instead of letting them divide us?
When we love others as recklessly as Jesus loves us?

That’s when walls come down.

I once saw a pastor wearing a shirt that said:
“Everything changes when it’s someone you know.”
Simple. But it wrecked me—in the best way.

Because if we truly know someone, truly sit down with them, the labels vanish. The humanity shines through. We realize we’re not the people the dividers told us we were. None of us fit neatly into one box.

This isn't politics. It's the Gospel.
It’s the way of Jesus.

He tore down walls—always to the frustration of the religious.
But not just them.

He frustrated the powerful, because His kingdom didn’t need their thrones.

He frustrated the dividers, because His love refused their lines.

He frustrated the gatekeepers, because He opened the doors too wide.

And maybe that’s still the lesson today.

Because that’s what Jesus WOULD do.
Better yet—
that’s what Jesus DID do.

09/12/2025

You can’t mourn violence while feeding it. Hypocrisy doesn’t heal—it harms.

09/12/2025

When leaders divide us, they serve themselves.
When they unite us, they serve us all.

09/11/2025

Yesterday was horrific. Scarring.

I did shed some tears when I saw what happened—because Charlie was a human being, a brother in Christ, and someone’s son. Someone’s husband. Someone’s dad. His family’s pain deserves our deepest love and compassion.

Here’s the hard part for pastors like me: posting about this—just like when we posted about Dr. James Dobson—was a no-win.

If we spoke kindly, we were “too soft.”
If we spoke honestly, we were “too harsh.”
And if we stayed silent, that silence spoke loudly too.

Balanced ground felt almost impossible.
But when balance feels impossible, prayer becomes the only solid footing we have.

So please know—when pastors like me choose to speak, it’s not flippant. It comes from prayer, reflection, and holding ourselves accountable before God.

I preach loving others, even when it’s hard. If I can’t live that out in moments like this, then I don’t deserve a single second of your attention.

Jesus said loving your neighbor—even your enemy—is the true test of discipleship. If I don’t at least strive to practice what I preach, I have no business being in ministry.

At the same time, love doesn’t erase truth.
Honoring a life doesn’t mean ignoring the harm.

Both Kirk and Dobson caused real damage in the name of Christ—through disinformation, political manipulation, and unkindness toward the very people Jesus called us to love: the oppressed, the marginalized, the immigrant, the LGBTQ community.

So yes, I can grieve the men without condoning the mission. That tension matters.

What I can’t shake is this: I saw the footage yesterday, and it’s burned into my mind. If you saw it too, you know how haunting it was.

Then I thought—what if cameras were rolling in every school where beautiful, innocent children were shot?

I’m still shaken from watching a grown man collapse—what if we had to see what God sees?

Innocent kids falling in the same way. Maybe then we’d stop treating tragedy like politics and start treating it like humanity instead of just another faceless number.

Maybe “thoughts and prayers” would evolve into “dialogue and compromise.”

Here’s the truth: disagreement is not the enemy.
Dehumanization is.

If we don’t learn to humanize one another again—and decisively silence the voices that thrive on division while choosing instead to hear the ones building bridges—we will NEVER heal. Simple logic.

If we follow the dividers, it only gets darker.
But if we turn down their volume—if we choose to love, to listen, to humanize—then we can begin to unite.

And unity doesn’t mean uniformity.
It means we’ll still disagree (ask anyone who’s been married for a while).

But we’ll listen to each other again.
We’ll compromise.
That’s not weakness. That’s strength.

Because the greatest threat to our nation isn’t that we disagree—it’s that we’ve stopped seeing each other as human.

09/10/2025

Charlie Kirk was shot in Utah today.

While I disagree with most everything Charlie Kirk said and did, he did not deserve this, and violence is never, ever justified.

Never.

He is still God’s creation with a wife and children. His family will never be the same.

Some things go well beyond differences of opinion. These evil acts of violence should never be accepted in any form, nor should our empathy be based on partisan lines.

Please pray for him and his family.

09/10/2025

He traded the Son of God for a handful of coins. But today? Millions trade Him for something far cheaper—political idols dressed up as saviors.

Jesus warned us: “You cannot serve both God and money” (Matthew 6:24).

The same is true of power. The same is true of politics.

He said, “My kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36).

And yet, people keep bowing at the altars of this world, pretending it’s somehow devotion to Him.

And here’s the irony—some rage against the sins of others while proudly ignoring (or worse, validating) the horrific sins of their idols. That’s hypocrisy so obvious it’s blinding—parading as righteousness while fooling no one but themselves.

Some should be embarrassed. But they aren’t. Some are proud.

Why? Because their identity is chained more to a political savior than to the real One. So they double down—louder, harsher, more defiant—because admitting the truth would cost them the idol they’ve come to worship.

But here’s the truth: when loyalty to a flag takes precedence over the cross, that isn’t patriotism—it’s idolatry. When the Sermon on the Mount is ignored, that isn’t discipleship—it’s betrayal. When political idols are clung to tighter than Jesus, that isn’t faith—it’s fraud.

Judas betrayed Him with a kiss.
Betrayal still happens today—with ballots.
With silence. With rage.
With obsession with power.
With the worship of our opinions.

So let’s be honest—this isn’t discipleship. It’s betrayal.

So let’s not pile on Judas for a betrayal 2,000 years ago while millions are repeating it today.

That legacy isn’t just his—it now brands every Christian who bows to unChristlike idols and calls it faith.