Imaginatively Inhabit

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The Stories We Tell

by Tyler Dirks

Today I decided to write a book. I sat down to write the aforementioned book, but I couldn’t decide what to write the book about. So I decided to put-off writing a book for another day. But now we find ourselves in an awkward predicament. I boldly told you of my intentions to write a […]

Romans 14

by Tyler Dirks

My friend Brian recently forced me to imaginatively inhabit Romans 14. It’s always necessary to imaginatively immerse yourself in Romans 14, but 2020 is an especially ripe year for this perennially relevant passage. Romans 14 talks about how God’s kids are diverse. For instance, some of God’s kids are strict about rules, and have a […]

The Weight of Glory

by Tyler Dirks

I recently had a brilliant idea for a blog post. But I forgot what it was. I’m not sure if it would have solved majority of the world’s problems, but given the absurdity of most of my assumptions I am inclined to believe that it had great potential to remedy anywhere from .12% to 94.6% […]

Pray the Psalms! REALLY!?

by Tyler Dirks

I have often heard the leaders of ECPC say to people, “Pray the Psalms!” If you heed this counsel, you will find it fairly straight forward so long as you happen upon prayers like Psalm 5, wherein your participation involves personally adopting the words, “Through the abundance of Your steadfast love, I will enter Your […]

Blood That Speaks Better…

by Tyler Dirks

I had the privilege of baptizing Mason Smith yesterday. Naturally, for Presbyterian purposes, I wanted to work the word “sprinkle” into the baptism schpeel, and so I quoted from Hebrews 12:24 where it says, “Jesus, the Mediator of a New Covenant, and His sprinkled blood which speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” […]

Leadership…

by Tyler Dirks

Over the past 6 years ECPC has many times wondered, debated, and wrestled with the question, “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” And Christ’s prophetic and pastoral response has consistently been, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child […]

Option #3

by Tyler Dirks

Imagine your sibling needs medicine for a chronic medical condition. Your family struggles to make ends-meet, and the needed medication is expensive. Through creative budgeting tactics your family is barely able to afford the daily doses. The average pressure of this predicament is stressful, but to make matters worse there is a brutal chief tax […]

Full Disclosure

by Tyler Dirks

One of my favorite words is “subversive.” Ask Justin …he’ll back me up on that. So you can imagine my excitement when I read this excerpt from Eugene Peterson’s book, “Subversive Spirituality.” The emphasis of ECPC has always been on SAVORING the King of kings, and of course slowness and savoring are inextricably linked; but […]

Violence in The Bible

by Tyler Dirks

From time to time I tune into the APJ podcast. THIS ONE from September 25, 2020 is a must listen. And in addition to listening, here is an excerpt especially worth reading and retaining – – – > God’s presentation of these violent things in writing in the inspired Scripture is no mistake. He presents […]

10,080

by Tyler Dirks

I just learned that there are 10,080 minutes in a week. I learned this while eavesdropping on THIS conversation between Andy & Tim Timmons. …Tim points out that Jesus’ wife invests approx 80 minutes per/week singing Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, confessing sins and faith, receiving assurance of forgiveness, and attending to the supernatural revelation […]