Value Add: Conversations and Reflections that add value to your life.

Sermon at Franklin Christian Church about grief. 

Hopeful Imagination series continues as we look at the Book of Jeremiah. I really love the video resources available at thebibleproject.com and highly recommend taking a look at their Exile and how to read the Prophets and Biblical poetry videos. 

This was originally shared as a Facebook live video. These Friday reflection podcasts are going to continue being this way. 

What's your personal mission statement? Do you have values you want to be known for? What clutter in your life keeps you from being able to focus on creativity and leadership? 

The start of a new series of sermons on the perspective of the Old Testament prophets and psalmists who had in the words of Walter Brueggemann a "Hopeful Imagination." 

This was a Facebook live video of the launch of our Improving Leaders YouTube channel. Learn more about what Improving Leaders is by visiting improving leaders.org 

I've preached this message before for New Years but enjoyed sharing it slightly differently with the Franklin Christian Church. Every year is a new beginning, and probably better for us than resolutions we are going to end up abandoning or feeling like we missed out or failed, what if we chose to consider living our normal routines with intentionality. Perhaps that means adding a new one or two but maybe instead it's just a new way of looking at things we do every day like eating meals together. 

One of the most common New Years resolutions for Christians is to start a "Read the Bible Cover to Cover in a Year" plan. And if you're anything like me getting started was fun, Genesis is captivating with big story arcs like Creation and fascinating stuff about towers, languages, floods, and then familial drama throughout all of Abram's kids and grand kids. But then you get to Leviticus and either get bogged down, skip it, or quit all together. In this recorded sermon for a small rural church I spend the week after Christmas and before New Years to explore the big theme of holiness throughout this very underrated book of the Bible. 

Third and final installment in the advent series at Franklin Christian Church. We talk about the Magi and the idea of presence. 

I've been listening to a lot of perspectives about spiritual deconstruction so I took a chance to review some resources and a book I read about the Bible as Christian Scripture. This may be a little rambl-ly but I hope it may spark some curiosity and questions you might want to explore. 

Sermon at Franklin Christian Church on Dec 13. 

A conversation about honesty. 

Apologies for no intro and outro music. I have an issue with my main computer system and haven't resolved it yet. 

Sermon at Franklin Christian Church where I am speaking every Sunday while they wait to formalize a search for a pastor. It's a very small and rural church. I worked with my good friend Jason Swick on the theme and shared ideas back and forth for this mini series on Advent. 

No time like the present to get back into the swing of things. Take a listen for the updates to the Coburn family and also some Advent thoughts I've had. 

Hoping to post more frequently. Would love to hear from you and do some Q/A and deal with topics and questions you are interested in! Email me lars@valueaddconversations.com

We come to the end of the 30 day devotional series. I hope it hasn't been a waste of your time, my intention has been that anyone watching these would be able to say "that added value to my life." I hope the intentionality, questions, mentoring, and rhythms I've talked about has done that in some small way. You can find more about Centering Prayer/Contemplative SIT on my blog, link in bio. Stay tuned for some other content regarding my book. You can find the book "Follow the Way" on amazon and my blog. I'll sign the copies from my blog and website - plus it helps me out if you buy direct from me.
Thanks so much friends. This has been fun! I'm sure I'll continue doing some videos here and there.

Let's be grateful people. Reviewing our day, week, month, year, season, covid-19 Quarantine with thanksgiving and looking ahead with hope. Check out my blog for my adapted prayer of Examen guide. Link in bio.

You may not be familiar with the Benedictine Monastic Rule, but you probably have some rules you follow about your life. A beautiful metaphor I heard used was that of a trellis or grape arbor. We want our lives to be trained up so they produce good fruit. Check out my blog, link in bio for a more detailed look at rhythms and a way I suggest go about writing your rule of life.

What's one way you can lean into the Creators invitation to have a rhythm of Rest?

What are your rhythms? Music requires a rhythm, a beat to keep time and enable the creativity and beauty of the sound and words to evoke mystery and awe. May our lives have a rhythm to it that points people to say "Thank you God."

We need to adopt the rhythm of saying thank you to the mentors in our lives.

Index cards. Goals. Accountability. Physical, Relational, and Spiritual - this is mentoring. We get to come alongside each other.

Mentor groups center around story-telling but there's another side to the coin, we also need to be people who are good story-listeners if the stories we tell will actually change our lives and churches. Find my whole mentor groups guide on my blog, link in bio.

What are the three types of mentors we all need in our lives...

Mentoring is not a “top down” approach where old mentor the young or the learned teach the inexperienced. Mentoring is a mutual endeavor, where we are all transformed by the Spirit of God found in each us.

Who is a mentor in your life? What do we want to be learning from others? This week we'll reflect on the Fruit of the Spirit and how we can "follow the Spirit" by being intentional with the relationships we have.

"Do you love me?" Now that is a good question.
Join the conversation, link in bio.

Where do I fit? Do I belong? Let's think through this very important question that helps us locate ourselves.
Join the conversation, link in bio.

From - "when are we going back to 'normal'" - to "when is dinner gonna be ready?" We want specifics on when things are going to take place. We like to know the date and time, even of things like our death. How does Jesus treat the when question?

From - "when are we going back to 'normal'" - to "when is dinner gonna be ready?" We want specifics on when things are going to take place. We like to know the date and time, even of things like our death. How does Jesus treat the when question?

Ask me why, one more time...Perhaps you've been annoyed by the curiosity of a child who pesters you with why questions. They are developing their brain and reasoning skills. We all could grow from asking why, just one more time.

What makes a good question? How do you ask it? What are you trying to do? How will you go about it? These essential questions help ground our lives. Jesus masterfully uses what and how questions to help others reflect. I would love to hear what you think makes for a good question, comment here or join the conversation on my blog. Let's learn together by asking good questions of each other and God.

Happy Easter! Our second week is about questions. Jesus asks a lot of questions in the Gospels, join me this week as we reflect on how questions can help add value to our lives. I would love for you to add to the conversation the questions you find valuable, what are some good questions we need to ask of each other and God?

What if eating and drinking was a moment of intentionality? "Do this in remembrance of me" "for when you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes." Let's be people who continue eating and drinking as we wait for the coming of our savior, Jesus.

We used to memorize a lot of things, phone numbers, addresses - then we got smartphones. What things do you still memorize? What if the things you memorized could help you pray during times when you don't know what to pray? Times like Covid-19.

Learning to listen to others is great, but how do we learn to listen to God? What does cultivating humility in our relationship with God look like? Take a breath.
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Intentionality is about creating habits and seasons of our lives where we live into intimacy with God and our families. This means the point isn't goal setting and accomplishing our to do lists or burdening ourselves with routines, but it does mean we evaluate and reflect on practices and habits that do point us toward intimacy.

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Joshua and the people of Israel were getting ready to ford the river Jordan...what lay ahead was a lot of difficult tasks. During this season we can feel overwhelmed by what lays ahead, even just waking up is something we must "conquer." Living with intentionality doesn't mean we win every battle but it does mean we create markers to remind us of when God has shown up. For Israel, there were 12 stones that marked the miraculous "God showing up" moment of crossing the Jordan on dry ground. What marking stones do you have in your life? 

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The first conversation is INTENTIONALITY. There is no such thing as a “normal” day, week, year. The important in our lives is constantly at risk of being crowded out by the immediate. Intentionality acknowledges this tension and realizes grand goal making can leave us beaten down and discouraged when we fail to live up to our goals. Things like family meals every night, reading through the Bible in a year, nightly routines, rest, and vacations all are subjects discussed by blog articles, self help books, and sermons by well meaning pastors and leaders. But what if there was something more important than the idealistic plans we make? What if we cultivated an environment of intentionality so that even the mundane and ordinary of our days was value add?

An introductory week to my 30 day devotional series. This first week I look at lent and the disruptive nature of Covid-19. Then in the next four weeks we look at 1. Intentionality, 2. Questions, 3. Mentoring, 4. Rhythms as key conversations that add value to our life. 

Add to the conversation by visiting my blog valueaddconversations.com

An introductory week to my 30 day devotional series. This first week I look at lent and the disruptive nature of Covid-19. Then in the next four weeks we look at 1. Intentionality, 2. Questions, 3. Mentoring, 4. Rhythms as key conversations that add value to our life. 

Guest host Larry Coburn guides a fun father & son conversation with Lars about leadership.