Jun 12

Jun 12 Setting the Example (Lookout Kid) (1 Timothy 4:4-12)

Last week, I was at Bethany Hills with our high schoolers and students from other Disciples congregations in Tennessee. It was a wonderful seven days; honestly the best I have had over there. However, It did not give me ample time to write a sermon. It’s hard to do that when everything is damp all the time from the humidity, everything smells like Cheetos and bug spray, there are ridiculous songs about fish being played from Bluetooth speakers, and you keep catching the most random snippets of conversations. Plus given the choice, it’s just better to be with people.

I told this to Christi Williams when she was picking up her two children from camp on Friday and she said with matter-of-a-fact confidence, “Just tell four stories from camp and say, ‘Amen.’” So this sermon is how my sleep-deprived mind takes some experiences from this past week, run it through the filter of today’s scripture passage and a recent song from one of my favorite bands, and see what it can say to us about faith and leadership.

Let me set the stage with that verse and that song. In 1 Timothy 4:4-12, the writer, which could be Paul or it could be someone writing in Paul’s name, is encouraging a young minister. There is a reminder that everything created by God is good and a reminder about how utterly important it is to train oneself in godliness; one should not neglect taking care of themselves spiritually just like they shouldn’t neglect their physical or mental health. The writer reminds the reader that this training can be difficult. It can be a toil and a struggle, yet we set our hope on Jesus.

May 18

May 18 To Jim on His 12th Birthday

Chris Cox

Let’s start with this picture; a birthday tradition that began when you were probably five years old. You would always hold up the number of fingers you turned that day. Obviously last year, we exceeded the digits on your hands. You actually made a joke this morning about holding up one of your feet. Instead we just took this picture.

And this is the first time that I see something else in your birthday picture. I’ll look back and there is this bright eyed, cherubic kid. That’s still in there but I’m beginning to see the something beyond the kid now. You’re getting taller, leaner. You’re growing up and the little kid part of you is starting to recede into the background. I am not entirely sure what to do with that. I mean, you’re twelve. This is life. It is what happens.

We actually had a nice moment talking about this in the car on the way to school today. You crawled into the front seat after we dropped your brother off. “You can’t believe you have a twelve year old, huh?” you asked. I explained that I did believe it. I have been here the whole time after all, but it was strange. I remember first hearing your heartbeat. I remember the first time I saw your tiny, helpless body as the nurses handed you to your mom. So for that baby to be sitting in the front seat asking that question in a deeper voice as I drive him into middle school is weird. But I said that growing up is what you are supposed to do and your supposed to do and that your mom and I are proud of the young man you’re becoming.

Mar 19

Mar 19 To Liam on His 9th Birthday

Chris Cox

I write this at the end of full day which has come at the end of a long week. It was Spring Break this past week and so your Mom and I thought it good to take you and your brother to Washington, D.C. Some of it was wonderful. I will never get tired of seeing you or your brother experience new things in this world. I swelled with pride as you started rattling off facts about a president and impressed a stranger when we were in the National Museum of American History. And I loved following you as you bounded around pointing out planes and spaceships at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Air and Space Museum. Of course other parts, were a little more taxing. I think most parents have moments on vacation with their kids when they seriously question the whole concept of vacation with kids.

We capped it off by stopping in Pigeon Forge on the way home to go to Dollywood with your South Carolina grandparents and some of your cousins. All of this was a lot of fun, but I am incredibly tired and I am not sure that my weary mind can produce what I really want to in this annual letter to you. But I’m going to try.

I could rattle off how you still love ducks and Scooby-Doo. Or about how you are really in to reading books about which animals would win in a battle or real-life survival stories. I could talk about how if there is a wall then you are going to try walk on it. Or about how it slightly concerns me how half the time that you play Zelda, you are seeking out creative ways for Link to get maimed and/or killed. Or I could talk about how almost once a week while we are reading Bible stories, you ask really probing and challenging questions about faith that give my Master of Divinity degree a run for its money.

Feb 27

Feb 27 Transfiguration & Transformation

Chris Cox

Weekly Lectionary

High up on a mountain comes a voice: “This is my Son, the chosen one.” In that moment it was hard not to believe the call that thundered from the cloud. Their teacher’s face had transformed and his garments shined like lightning. Moses and Elijah stood there at his side. Surely this man was the Son of God.

Yet the voice was not finished. Lost in the cloud, those three dumbfounded disciples heard instruction: “Listen to him!” It was those words on which the Transformation of Peter, James, John, and the rest of us hang. It was one thing to think that he was God’s Son, but it was another entirely to listen to him.

I want to see transformation. I think that most of us do. Not so much for our faces to change or our clothes to flash with blinding light. But the kind of change that comes from truly listening to Jesus. To truly love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. To love our neighbors, enemies, and ourselves. To be those blessed peacemakers.

Feb 21

Feb 21 Getting Out of the Boat (Matthew 14:22-33)

Chris Cox

Sermon Manuscript

For the last two weeks, the Winter Olympics have been on our TV constantly. It does not matter what event it is or whether the United States has any shot at a medal, we’re watching it. I love it. I love all the countries of the world coming together. I love the underdog stories. I was really pumped to see the Jamaican bobsled team back in the Games this year. It’s a lot of fun to watch. But something occurred to me this year as I watched and I don’t know why because tons of people on the internet have said the same thing: these are the most bizarre and stupid dangerous sports in existence.

In the Summer Olympics, the events are pretty straight forward. Who can run the fastest, swim the fastest, jump the highest, throw the farthest? In the Winter Olympics it’s “We have this ice roller coaster and we have a variety of ways to send you down it at 80 miles per hour. You can go in a bullet sled with your buddies or lay on your back in a regular sled, or you can go face first, or we can stack another person on top of you.” Or “Ski down this mountain, go off the ramp, do flips and twists 200 feet in the air, and then don’t shatter when you hit the ground.” In biathlon, they took cross country skiing—which seems like it might be the most grueling sport in existence—and someone said, “But what if we gave them guns?” Even sports in which I have participated in like skiing or skating are down with such daredevil degrees of difficulty that if I were to try even half of what they do, my best case scenario is a concussion.

Jan 17

Jan 17 Our Prophets Shouldn't Make Us Comfortable

Chris Cox

I always feel a little weird about Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. It is not because I don’t think we should celebrate the late civil rights icon. We absolutely should celebrate his work and the work of so many others. His passion for justice, his commitment to nonviolent resistance, and the light of his theological imagination should be guides for us even today.

I still remember reading his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” for the first time. It was like he had unlocked something I had not yet understood about the link between the Christian faith and justice. And about how the silence of white churches was as complicit in racial inequality as those who defended Jim Crow with billy club, burning cross, and unjust law.

What makes me feel weird on this day is the way in which his words and legacy are boiled down to little inspirational aphorisms. Everyone does it. Many who make these posts do it with sincerity. Yet there are many corporations and politicians that do it because that is what you are supposed to do. We slap his picture and a quote about choosing love or doing the right thing and it makes you for a moment seem righteous.

Jan 12

Jan 12 More Than Words Can Say

Chris Cox

My Granddad came to pick me up one day after school when my parents were out of town. I was probably 13 or 14 years old. I had a CD player in the front room with me and being a very earnest mid-90s evangelical who wanted to be seen as mature, I was listening to Caedmon’s Call. You don’t need to know who they were just that the song that was playing when my Granddad came in the house had the refrain “This world has nothing for me / And this world has everything / All that I could want / And nothing that I need.”

As we got in the car, Granddad asked what I was listening to and I began philosophizing about the song. In my best attempt at profundity, I explained that our minds as Christians are supposed to be solely on heaven and when our gaze is on the eternal then we realize that this world indeed has nothing for us. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. In a very humble, straightforward way that likely had been with him since his farming days in Florida, Granddad simply said, “Well, there are loved ones.” After a moment of silence I mumbled, “Oh…yeah…you’re right.”

That conversation is never far from my mind. It is a core memory for me. Granddad believed fervently in following God in all that he did. My dad told me during a recent stint in the hospital that Granddad, while in great pain, would be praying and thanking God for the doctors, the nurses, and his children. Yet he never believed this world had nothing for him. Granddad demonstrated throughout his life that one of the main ways you love God is by loving the people around you.

Nov 3

Nov 3 The Grace of the Unexpected

Chris Cox

I keep catching myself with a stupid grin on my face this morning. The Atlanta Braves won the World Series. This was not supposed to happen.

They never sniffed a winning record until August 6. One of their star pitchers never saw the mound all season due to injuries. Their best player who was in the midst of a MVP-caliber year was lost in July. Their general manager overhauled a decimated outfield at the trade deadline when other teams, teams with better records were selling out to wait for next year.

They ground it out, hung around in a weak division, started to string together wins, and found their way to NL East pennant in the last week of the season. That was supposed to be it. At 88 wins, there were teams that missed the playoffs with better records than Atlanta.

So no one really expected anything out of this team in the postseason. Few predicted they would make it out of the first round against Milwaukee. Not to mention they were Atlanta team and Atlanta teams have become known across sports for their ignominious playoff failures. Every time the Braves lost, sportswriters and fans knew that the other shoe was dropping.

Except every time Atlanta lost, they came out the next game and won.

Oct 22

Oct 22 Why are you sleeping? (Luke 22:46 & Romans 13:10-12)

Chris Cox

Sermon Manuscript

Twenty-nine years ago, the Atlanta Braves were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League Championship Series. You have to understand that at the time—at least from my childhood perspective—it seemed like the entire southeastern region of the United States lived and died with the fortunes of the ball club from Atlanta. They were a garbage team for much of the 1980s, but suddenly with the rise of an incredible pitching staff they began to catch fire. And the South plus anyone who had the channel TBS on cable began to get swept up in the excitement. Braves hats were everywhere. P.A. systems at high school football games would break in with updates of playoff scores.

Once a year, our church would take buses on the three hour trek to Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and it felt like a trip to Disney World. By all metrics, baseball has been passed in popularity by football and maybe even basketball. So those first few years of the 1990s are in my memory, baseball’s last true run at being the National Pastime. My brother Taylor and I were locked into all of it.

All of which brings us back to 29 years ago this past Thursday: Atlanta and Pittsburgh were playing a winner-take-all Game 7. The Braves were seeking their second consecutive trip to the World Series, while the Pirates were seeking to avenge falling short against Atlanta the year before. Pittsburgh pitcher Doug Drabek pitched a masterful game and the Pirates were winning 2-0 going into Atlanta’s final at-bat in the Bottom of the 9th; three outs from celebrating on the field of their nemesis. Then October magic began to stir. Terry Pendleton led off with a double then advanced to third when David Justice reached base on an error. Next, Sid Bream walked to load the bases. Ron Gant hit a long fly ball for the first out that allowed Pendleton to score and make it a one run ballgame. Catcher Damon Berryhill walked to load the bases again and then Brian Hunter popped up to the second baseman.

Sep 8

Sep 8 Just Said No

Chris Cox

So here’s the thing that you need to understand about being an elementary school kid in the late 80s/early 90s: we were led to believe that drugs were going to be constantly pushed on us. Our teachers told us this. Nancy Reagan told us this. TV shows told us this. Cartoon characters told us this a lot.

I still remember the PSA starring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles where they showed a video of a kid named Tommy being offered weed. Donatello and company talked us through how to say no. That’s where I learned that “I’m not a chicken! You’re a turkey!” was going to be the kiss-off line that would save me from some mullet-headed, jean jacket-wearing fifth grade drug kingpin.

This is not to make light of drug addiction nor to gloss over the complicated legacy of the War on Drugs, both of which are serious issues. It’s just that I was told that I was going to need all this drug-resistance education because I would one day be bombarded with every illegal substance known to humanity. Except it never happened.

Until today.

June 15, 2026

Dangerous Memories and Unfinished Futures

“’Do this in remembrance of me.’ Jesus invites you to commemorate his betrayal, death, and resurrection. His invitation makes space for ‘dangerous memory,’ a memory that, as post-Holocaust Catholic theologian Johann Baptist Metz tells us, ‘puts pressure on and questions our present because in it we remember an unfinished future.’ Memory can unsettle the unreconciled present and open up a future for the hopeless and the forgotten, the failed and the oppressed….Remembering keeps the ghosts alive so that they may warn and comfort, haunt and inspire the living: dangerous memories that rush toward an unfinished future. Making the absent present allows for processing grief, strengthening commitments, and opening up vision. Such remembrance commits you to work for a future for those who have been forgotten, erased, and left behind.”
-Hanna Reichel, For Such a Time as This, 88, 89

I believe that most of us experience an internal tug-of-war between the past and the future. In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis’ titular demon supervisor advises his underling Wormwood that one of best ways to keep a human from doing good is to keep them ping-ponging between those two times that are not the present. One keeps trying to recapture or reach towards moments that are mist. It can keep a person from doing something.

The quote above resonates with me because it harnesses the past and unfinished future into a catalyst that animates our present. We remember the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus because it means something today and compels us to presently work for the Good that is already here, but also not yet. We remember the hope and pain of the past to do something that help us take some sort of step each and every day. We realize that the hope which exists within the gospel story is not yet fully realized. Many people are still being left behind and forgotten. The realization, as the theologian Metz states, puts pressure and questions on the present.

June 1, 2026

First Day of Pride

Being a parent forces you to take a close look at yourself. Of course, you don’t have to be a parent to self-examine, but there is something about the reality that another living human is under your care and protection for the foreseeable future that makes you take stock of your strengths, weaknesses, and beliefs. For example, I used to think I was a far more patient person before I had kids; like superhumanly patient. And then a crying toddler shows you the folly of that belief. On the flip side, time has moved on and having two teenagers affirms that, yes, I am ridiculously patient and that has been a strength as a parent.

Among many other reorienting moments that came with parenthood was full acceptance of our LGBTQ+ siblings. That process began many years earlier. As someone who studied religion, I knew that the biblical case against these individuals was not nearly as airtight as I was previously led to believe. Science and stories from people gave strong indication that this life was not a choice. And I had met gay and lesbian folks who were good people. The old axiom that you will know a tree by its fruit applies here.

But the tipping point was holding a tiny infant who I loved more than I thought possible and knowing that I never wanted him to be ashamed of who he is. I did not want a potential future in which one of my children came out as something other than heterosexual with the fear that we would not love them. Not accepting my child was not even conceivably on the table. So we raised our kids to know that LGBTQ+ were beloved members of God’s creation.

May 24, 2026

Not a Defeat If You Can Find a Way to Laugh About It

There is this typical ice breaker question that is some variation of “If you could have dinner with anyone famous living or dead, who would it be?” And one of my steadfast answers for almost twenty years has been Stephen Colbert. Through both The Colbert Report and The Late Show, he has given hours upon hours of laughter and more than enough on which to ponder. I feel like we’d have a lot to talk about since we are both unabashed nerds, products of the Palmetto State, and he just seems like a good hang.

Beyond all of that, I appreciate how honestly and humbly Colbert approaches his faith. There have been numerous times over the years when his comedy and conversations take a turn into the spiritual that is challenging and convicting. I remember an episode of The Colbert Report where one minute he was making a joke about Ben Franklin’s predilection for French prostitutes and then organically made his way to the following quote:

If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.

Then there are the interviews that he has conducted on The Late Show. Colbert has said that he sort of found the heart of his show when he had a conversation with then-Vice President Biden about grief. Indeed the loss of his father and brothers at a young age has led him to create an empathetic space to explore loss in the midst of celebrities promoting their most recent projects (my mind immediately comes to a conversation that he had with Andrew Garfield about the loss of the actor’s mother).

May 21, 2026

While I Breathe, I Hope

On the way to school, the youngest burrowed his head into my arm. “I don’t like that you’re getting older.”

“Why is that?”

“Because you’re one year closer to death.”

“There it is.” That’s my kid. Very sweet. Very sensitive. Brutally, bordering on inappropriately blunt. “Well, it’s better than the alternative.”

“Getting younger?” He thinks for a second. “Oh…dying.”

“Yeah, you can’t get younger.” I scratch him on the head. “And hopefully I have a ways to go. Ideally, I’ll still be kicking around when you turn 43.”

“You’ll be 73. So that’s reasonable”

“Yeah.”

“Granddad will be 103.”

“Less likely. But maybe. I hope he is as long as he’s happy.”

“And healthy. Happy, healthy, and alive.” Then he goes into a bit from an episode of Brooklyn Nine-Nine which makes me laugh.

Birthdays, as my oldest posited this morning, are kind of weird when you get older. Or at least they morph into something different from the second Christmas-esque excitement when you’re a kid. Because there does get to be that point where it creeps into your mind that you are a year closer to death. And that forces you take stock of your life which is a hit-or-miss affair due to being human’s volatility.

May 18, 2026

To Jim on his 16th Birthday

One day last week, I picked you up from school after took one of your AP exams and then I moved over to the passenger seat so you could practice driving. In the midst of being hyper vigilant about your speed, how quickly you stopped, how close you were to the side of the road, and what every single other car on the road was doing, I had a distinct moment of looking over at you and realizing that so much is changing. And we’re only at the start.

Today you turn 16. You are about to wrap up your sophomore year of high school. You’ll take a driver’s license test in just a few weeks. We have three more summers before you go off to college. There are times it seems like yesterday when you were sitting in the living room watching cartoons with a couple of dozen superhero toys. There are times it seems like last week when you were a newborn sleeping in my arms.

The feeling of you being 16 is kind of like being the passenger in the car while you are driving. I have a ton of confidence in you and trust you. And I worry about your lack of experience in a big, sometimes frightening world and whether I have taught you well enough. I am wary of everyone else on the road. I wonder if you are going too fast even though you are going an appropriate speed and I am the one who encouraged you not to go as slow in the first place. It is all very exciting, humbling, frightening, and new.

April 21, 2026

What Nintendo Can Teach the Church

Christmas 1988. My brother Taylor and I receive the Nintendo Entertainment System packaged with Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt and we have been fans ever since. We have grown up with the Japanese company’s gaming systems; the adventures of Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Link, Zelda, Donkey and Diddy Kong, and more have been a consistent presence in our lives. Even though we are in three different states now as adults, Taylor, my sister Shari, myself, and our kids will get together every so often and play Mario Kart online. We love Nintendo, which is a weird thing to say about a corporation that makes a billion dollars but it is what it is.

With all that said, I loved the Keza MacDonald’s book Super Nintendo: The Game-Changing Company That Unlocked the Power of Play. Not only is it an engaging journey through video game history through the lens of Nintendo’s iconic (and less iconic) franchises, but the book also has a great deal to say about creativity, community, and culture. In fact, it is that last idea that got me thinking about how this video game company can teach the church (or any other organization) even as I am a bit of an outsider to that world presently.

Here is one of two quotes that jumped out at me from the chapter “Splatoon” which looks at how Nintendo continues innovate and create over 40 years into its video game endeavors:

April 12, 2026

Easter Orphans, A Lost Cat, and A Tightrope Called Hope

“Happy Easter?”

That is the first thing EA said to me as I woke up on Easter morning. I stretched and rubbed my eyes.

“I still believe in Jesus. It’s just the church that I’m not sure about.”

Some context: This was the first Easter in our 20+ years of marriage (and likely in either of our lives) in which we did not have a church to attend. It’s been about a year since we’ve gone to church as a family. Honestly, the church that we attended after I stepped down from working in a congregation had a tall order to tend to our hurting family. It was a good group of people, but the services and community never really clicked with our boys. Then early last year, I got moved to a Sunday morning shift. EA tried for a bit to go by herself but it wasn’t what she needed. In the end, I was gone for about eight months before anyone in the church really noticed and we decided to take a break.

I acknowledge my uncertainty about the church is a bit over-dramatic. Of course, there are great churches out there. There are wonderful people in congregations where my family and I have experienced the most pain. It’s akin to writing off burritos for life because you got violent food poisoning from one (This is based on a true story; I have not written off burritos just that particular Chipotle location). But the church hurt is real. As is the MAGA-fication of the denomination in which I grew up that feels so antithetical to the teachings of Jesus. So we don’t have a place to call home and it’s weird and sad and understandable.

April 1, 2026

Lent Fail

Absurdist Note: I really want to add “Woo-ooh!” after the title. If you know, you know.

I have not pulled off this year’s Lenten disciplines the way that I set out to. When this 40 day period began, I set out to take on this fasts/spiritual practices:

Stop drinking Coca-Cola
Stop eating French fries
Stop playing Disney Solitaire on my phone
Do a daily devotional from Richard Rohr’s Wondrous Encounters
Write a blog five days a week

When the war in Iran began and threw another log on the fire that is the world, it pained me both spiritually and physically. One of the ways that played out was headaches and since headaches were already part of removing the caffeine of Coca-Cola from my life, I decided I probably shouldn’t compound a problem and began drinking Coke again. I have had French fries a few times; not many, mind you, but enough to break up the fast. There have been several multiple day stretches where I did not do my devotional. And my efforts to blog five times a week quickly fell by the wayside. I have managed to keep from playing Disney Solitaire, but that still puts my Lenten average in Mendoza Line territory.

March 29, 2026

An Awkward Parade (Revisited)

Several hundred, some may say several thousand, years worth of anticipation hung thick in the air. Like summer humidity that sticks to your shirt the second you step outside, you couldn’t avoid it if you wanted to. Especially not during Passover week.

There was a guy making his way into Jerusalem; a guy claiming to be the Messiah. This was nothing new. He would not be the first that people claimed would save us. There had been tons of guys going around saying that they were the One; saying that they were going to show Rome what’s what. So a would-be messiah making his way to Jerusalem was about as common as a singer-songwriter making their way to Nashville.

But this felt different. He seemed different. Now there was a fair amount of debate whether he was the right or wrong kind of different. For starters, word got out that he had tried to keep a lot of the messiah talk and even tales of his miracles under wraps. But it is difficult to keep those kind of stories quiet: dead men walking, the blind seeing, demons plunging a herd of pigs over a cliff, and thousands fed from a lunch meant for a single kid. You can tell people to keep that hush-hush all you want, but it’s not going to happen.

March 24, 2026

Blooming Broken Branches

In front of our house there is a branch that is barely hanging on to its tree. The limb is a casualty of the ice storm that tore Nashville earlier this year. As we cleaned up the debris afterwards, we tried to tear it off the tree as we did with a few other broken branches out front. But this branch was more stubborn than the others. So even though it is hanging on by a thread and nearly perpendicular with the ground, it remains as a reminder of a storm.

Now that branch is in bloom. Still hanging on by a thread, still touching the ground but now with flowers and the buds of leaves. It was a surprise at first. We did not really expect that branch to still be alive as it was barely connected to its source. But it is very much alive and now a symbol of beautiful tenacity. Even though it looks askew, I cannot imagine trying to rip that branch from its tree and I don’t think my sons would let me if I wanted to.