Rick Nier...Woo!

I have had some extra time to read books lately. While I allowed myself a short break into the world of fiction, I have also been reading Recovering Redemption  by Matt Chandler and Michael Snetzer. Here's a quote: For unlike the rest of humanity, Christians are not confined to grief responses that can never do anything but make us die a little more each day: trying so hard to act like we're not sinners, or to act like our sin is not really a big deal - at least not as bad as it seems when we're the most bummed out about it. But, yes, it is. It's bad. Majorly bad.  (Emphasis mine) If we stop to consider this, it makes sense. For those of us who live on this side of the greatest sacrifice in all of history, Jesus is like the greatest spoiler to a story where we can know the end. Yes, we're sinners. But we know Jesus came to die for our sins. Because we know the solution from the start, we minimize the problem. But imagine life before Jesus walked the Eart

As I shared last week , the Nier household has been in full-on celebration mode. The Nier children have completed the first week at schools they didn't think they'd be attending. We are not moving from a house we thought for sure we'd be selling. And my wife is happily getting settled in at her new job. Many congratulations were given (thanks, friends!) but several asked me the inevitable question. So what does this mean for you? Believe me, that is a question I have been asking myself since I first announced I was resigning . And since June, the question has loomed like a large cloud over every one of my days. From certain people, I could hear the questions they were perhaps too afraid to ask out loud. Are you trained to do anything besides play with teens and work one day a week? I write that, tongue planted in cheek, but don't be fooled. I've asked it of myself. What does a guy, who has only ever wanted to be a youth pastor, do when he is no longer a yout

Seven months ago, I never saw this coming. We had just told our kids that we were going on an adventure , one that began with informing the church we'd been a part of for 15 years that God was moving us elsewhere. We told our kids that we didn't know yet where we were going, but that we would trust God to lead us where He wanted us. We acknowledged there would be difficult parts of this adventure. We knew saying goodbye to friends would be hard. My wife and I prayed about the transition and what impact it would have on our children. There were parts of this adventure I'd have preferred not to have experienced. There were hard conversations, doubts, lots of prayer and more conversations. I've shared some of the experiences here , here and here . Actually, there's a few more, but you can find them for yourself. I wouldn't want to be accused of over-linking. The entire time, whenever I prayed, I told God an answer would be a good thing, because He would rece