Sterling Griggs

As of this afternoon, the Five Sided Coffee Co. is online and open for business ! It's been a dream of mine for some time to start a custom roasting coffee company that would allow me to have more funds to give to needed ministries and mission opportunities. Five Sided Coffee is the culmination of that dream and I couldn't be more excited. If you get a chance, check out the site and give me some feedback (or better yet, order some coffee).

I was driving in my car yesterday when I go pulled up behind a big logging truck at a stop sign. As I was waiting for the driver to turn, I noticed a small green bumper sticker on the back of the truck, and I couldn't help but laugh when I read it. The sticker read: "If you have a problem with logging, see how you like using plastic toilet paper. " The logging company was sending a clear message: You may not like the fact that we cut down trees, but you also wouldn't like to do without the many things that trees provide. That sticker got me to thinking about what I am willing to do without as a follower of Christ. Jesus told His disciples (and anyone else who would follow Him) in Luke 14:25-33 that they had to be willing to "count the cost" if they were to follow Him. Jesus meant that we would have to consider all of the costs, sacrifices, and setbacks that could occur if we were to follow Him with our lives. Becoming a follower of Jesus may seem like...

When I opened my Bible to read today and came upon Psalm 63, the words of this chapter absolutely stopped me in my tracks. The theme of the chapter is "praise to God who satisfies" and it's a combination of not only what God gives to us but how we are to respond to His lavish grace and love. In a nutshell, in response to God's great love for us, Psalm 63 describes a worthy response: eagerly desire and thirst for Him, to gaze upon Him glorify Him as long as we live with our lips because His love is better than life meditate on Him; rejoice in the shadow of His wings (His protection over us) follow close to Him This list humbles and challenges me. Too often, I am more concerned about what I want to get from God than what I can give back to Him. All hypocrisy and selfishness aside, how can I not respond to Him with my life when I consider all that He has done and given for me? Why do I wait on the Lord to give me more when I have given to Him so little?

I just returned a few days ago from taking several of my college students to the Passion 07 conference in Atlanta. It was a crazy and busy 4 days (I went down to the Orange Bowl in Miami for a day while I was there - too bad Wake lost but it's alright) and I came back with a bunch of ideas swimming around in my head. Along with incredible worship and speakers, the Passion conference offered a lot of options for what they call "breakout groups" in the afternoon. As I skimmed over the list of groups being offered, one immediately caught my eye and I knew that I had to go. It was a discussion of the Invisible Children movement that got started a couple of years ago. Basically, 3 film students from Southern California traveled to Africa thinking they were going to do a story on Sudan but when they got there they realized the story they were looking for was to be found in Northern Uganda. The children of Uganda, especially the boys, have been vicitimized for 20 years now ...