David Sunde's Blog

Anne Lamott tells a story of a little girl who got lost one day. After driving around with a policeman looking for familiar landmarks, she saw her church and said, “You can let me out now. This is my church, and I can always find my way home from there.”

Lamott adds, “And that is why I have stayed close to mine—because no matter how bad I’m feeling, how lost, lonely or frightened, when I see the faces of the people at my church, I can always find my way home.”

More than 400 years ago, St. Ignatius...

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, "You've heard it was said don't murder...but I say anyone who's angry will be subject to judgment."

It's easy to read this as unattainable. But I think Jesus is urging us to change where our aim is.

Laws can only define the very minimum required to not sin. A true legalist wants to know the rules so they can see how much they can get away with. Laws can't legislate what you could do purely out of love. Jesus wants to move us beyond the minimum of our obligat...

Faith needs a laboratory, like love needs verbs and hope needs an address!

We live in a world God created but never intended. Brokenness—injustice, tragedy, disease, death—has become our desensitizing normal. What God once called good, we've calloused our hearts to survive.

Easter interrupts this reality with an invitation to be made new. The resurrection isn't a static holiday to commemorate. It's a promise for all people, at all times, to be made new, begin again, continually. Change is possible...

I LOVE the children's message. I love the kids running forward, getting high fives, raising their hands before a question is asked, and of course, the unscripted utterances of wanting to give the right answer. It's the perfect spiritual sorbet to cleanse a parishioner's palette before settling into sacramental worship.

Deacon Eric asked the kids this week, "Have you ever had to say you're sorry?" Hands shot up. "What kinds of things have you had to apologize for?" Eager anecdotes faded into strea...

“The world is louder than it is accurate, and the truest things are often the most quiet.”

Brad Montague wrote that in his Manifesto for Stubborn Optimists, and I can't stop thinking about it. Because right now, injustice screams. Fear accuses. The desperate stampede shouts a single message: Save yourself! But underneath all that noise, there's this whisper that reorients Christian Hope…the world we know as normal is not the one God intended.

Mea culpa is a familiar refrain confessing, “my fault...

The world is louder than it is accurate, and the truest things are often the most quiet.

Brad Montague wrote that in his Manifesto for Stubborn Optimists, and I can't stop thinking about it. Because right now, injustice screams. Fear accuses. The desperate stampede shouts a single message: save yourself. But underneath all that noise, there's this whisper—the world we know as normal is not the one God intended.

We know mea culpa—my fault, my confession. But what about felix culpa? Happy fault. For...

We know that moment when someone became "Mom" or "Dad" to us. Not when we mastered swaddling or figured out sleep schedules—but something deeper. A protective instinct we didn't know existed suddenly emerged. Identity shifted before competence ever caught up.

If you ask your child, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" try following up with, "Then what?" Because here's the truth: identity isn't a destination. It's not about arriving at a job title and stopping. It's about becoming.

Remember I...

In Almost Famous, rock journalist Lester Bangs snuck a profound, easily missed confession to his young protégé: "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Parenting inevitably reveals how the older we get, the less cool we become (#facts). But, what could be more unnerving - like realizing a mirror works even when our eyes are closed – is that kids have a front-row seat to our harried moments of long days and late nights of our flawed ...

One of the best to kill the vibe of a perfectly good small group is a curriculum. The alternative - discussing Sunday sermons - doesn’t offer a better growth trajectory. We’ve all been there - discussion narrows, relationships find a polite lane, and learning becomes primarily cognitive.

So, what if the “content” was your family rehearsing what you believe is true about God? What if you could move the needle of your small group from discussion to demonstration? From information to equipping? Wha...

Spend five minutes with a child asking a few questions and you can quickly learn what their family values, expectations, what’s allowed, and what’s frowned upon. Why is that?

Because a mirror works even when our eyes are closed.

Without having to say a word and without intending to, human nature has a way of expressing preferences, fears, political leanings, approval, annoyances, pleasure, and doubts without having to say a word. It’s in our reactions, a heavy sigh, how we spend, and what’s permis...