Sam Luce's Blog

This week, our church family suffered the devastating loss of a family member. A 16-year-old son and brother. Death is always such a painful reminder that our hope must rest in what can never be destroyed.

Levi was 16.

As his pastor when he was a kid, I remember him and his brother running around like Sam and Frodo, always up for some sort of adventure. We are all heartbroken by this loss. But we are not destroyed. Every death reminds us that life is a vapor. The death of a child, painfully so. ...

Peace

Not as the world gives, not the victor’s peace,

Not to be fought for, hard-won, or achieved,

Just grace and mercy, gratefully received:

An undeserved and unforeseen release,

As the cold chains of memory and wrath

Fall from our hearts before we are aware,

Their rusty locks all picked by patient prayer,

Till closed doors open, and we see a path

Descending from a source we cannot see;

A path that must be taken, hand in hand,

Only by those, forgiving and forgiven,

Who see their saviour in their enemy.

So r...

We live in a world of perpetual outrage. We march for war and against war. We march for women and for babies. We block streets to save whales, turtles, and the polar ice cap. Long after we are too old to march or too sick to care about the turtles, we will realize too late that the most beautiful, subversive, world-changing thing we can do is start a family.

I started this blog. 19 years ago. My wife and I had a one-two-year-old and another boy on the way. I started this blog to help change, enco...

The tradition of the churches I grew up in placed a high value on extemporaneous prayers. Prayer of the heart. Never read. Not scripted. I have found that type of prayer to be a great way to convey the state and desires of my heart to God. There is much good in this style of prayer, but it isn’t the only way you should pray. Over the years, I have found that praying this way exclusively leads to seeing prayer as a monologue rather than a dialogue.

When I would come to God with my needs and for t...

Kids need stories.

We live in a culture where kids have heard more scary things than they ever did growing up. Kids know more about the sadness in the world than ever before. We see the outworking of this in the anxiety and worry in our kids at a younger age and in a more intense fashion than has ever been seen. Kids are hearing news stories of murder and watching violence in the halls of their schools. Our kids are being sexualized at a younger and younger age and, as a result, are losing their ...

I wrote this post originally about six years ago. It took me about an hour to write. And after 15 years of blogging and countless book ideas and proposals, all of which were rejected. It was this little post that began the process that led to me being a published author. It’s crazy how continued honing of your craft plus the providential grace of God come together at just the right time to create something you can try for decades to make on your own.

Whatever you love to do, keep doing it. Keep ...

Parents who say their kids can be anything they want to be are trying to instill in their kids a right desire to think about the possibilities for the future. However, the values of our culture have subtly infiltrated the church and the homes of those who attend our churches. We have come to believe that the Christian life is about the pursuit of happiness more than the conformity to Christ.

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As Americans, freedom is our highest good and greatest goa...

The third temptation of Jesus in the desert was the temptation to be powerful. Jesus, fully human and fully God, was weary in his human flesh after forty days of fasting. The devil came to him and tempted him to be relevant, popular, and finally, powerful.

Satan promised him in Matthew 4, “I will give you all the kingdoms of this world in their splendor.” It was the temptation to have all the kingdoms of this world, the temptation to possess all the powe...

The second temptation Jesus faced in the desert was the temptation to be popular. To do something spectacular. To be someone others would revere because of his unique power, something that would gain him the applause of men.

Satan says to Jesus in Matthew 4:6, “Throw yourself from the parapet of the temple and let the angels catch you and carry you in their arms.”

Henri Nouwen says:

“Jesus refused to be a stunt man. He did not come to prove himself. He did not come to...

In this season of Lent. Forty days of prayer and repentance, a season of sustained focus on our sinfulness and the sufficiency of Christ. After Jesus’ baptism and before his public ministry, he was led into the wilderness, where he fasted and prayed. During which Jesus was tempted by the Devil in three particular ways.

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Henri Nouwen, a Christian Author and priest, wrote In the Name of Jesus. A short book that addresses the three temptations of Jesus...