Sterling Griggs

Costco Wholesale Warehouse is an absolute gold mine around lunch time. Vendors set up  tables all over the mammoth store, hawking all sorts of samples ranging from vitamin juice  shots to mini crab cakes. I used to make sure that I would go there with the kids so that we  would have at least one day when we didn’t have to meal plan.      I don’t shop there all the time because we simply can’t afford to. Not that the prices are bad,  it’s just that I don’t know when to stop. Instead, I will go every month or so to stock up on bulk  supplies of juice boxes, salsa, pizza rolls, peanut butter, and whatever items I am convinced  that my family cannot live without.        Perhaps the biggest, if only, drawback to Costco is that it is always crowded. Every aisle is  clogged with shoppers pushing oversized carts full of their choice of essential goods and,  while no one is necessarily rude about...

This past Saturday night my new neighborhood - Wrightsville Green, aka The Hood - celebrated its annual 4th of July gathering. Before we even moved in, several of our neighbors were quick to tell us how fun and amazing this night was. Our home owner's association sent us emails reminding us of the festivities and we were asked to sign up to bring food at the community mailbox. Seeing this as an opportune chance to get to know pretty much everyone in all 50+ homes, we agreed to bring cantaloupe (because you can't have a party without melon) and a cucumber/tomato/onion salad (because if they didn't eat it, I would). The days leading up to the shindig were filled with stories of past 4th of July celebrations and how this year's was going to be the best ever. Finally the big day had arrived. The party officially started at 4:00 but we planned to be fashionably late because it's really awkward when you don't really know many people and you are the first ones to ...

Growing up in a Christian home, church on Sundays was not just something that we did. It was something that served to define who we were. I have fond memories of attending Sunday school classes where I learned about Moses crossing the Red Sea, Daniel and the lion's den, and Jesus healing sick people all from the magic of the flannel graph board. The pain of sitting beside my grandfather on those impossibly hard wooden pews was dulled by hearing his rich baritone voice singing those beautiful old hymns. Those were simple, good times, but they served to give me a spiritual foundation that I have never forgotten. As I grew older and eventually left home, going to church shifted from something I had to do as a child under my parents' authority to something I could choose to do. As a young man who was entering the ministry, continuing to attend church was a no-brainer for me - why would I NOT want to go? Yet at the same time, I began to notice traits within me bubbling to the sur...

For several years now I've been able to go as an adult leader to the Passion Conferences in Atlanta. Having returned today, my mind is swirling with all sorts of thoughts, images, and mental tiredness that affects old guys like me when they go non-stop for almost three days. I realize that I am probably getting too old to keep doing this but I simply can't help myself. If you have never experienced something like the Passion Conferences, then a brief blog post like this is probably not going to amount to the much more than the first few pieces of a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. But it's just too difficult to not make at least a meager attempt to recap some of the more memorable moments for me. Imagine yourself sitting in a room surrounded by around 60,000 other adults young and old who want one thing - to know God in a more intimate way. And I'm not just talking about experiencing warm and fuzzy "Yes, Jesus loves me" kind of tingles; I'm talking about a ...

The Christmas season is fully upon us and everywhere you look there is magic - and gaudy decorations - in the air. Black Friday shopping still exists, but the internet has now cornered the market for savings and Amazon has this whole one-click shopping thing mastered. If you consider yourself a Christian or even just a slightly religious person, then you understand that Christmas is more than just being in the spirit of giving or a holiday that gets the kids out of school for a couple of weeks. Christmas is about Jesus, because it is that time of year when we recognize His birth, His coming into the world as the Messiah to save us from our sins and to bring the hope of eternal life. Now more than ever we realize that a large portion of our culture does not celebrate Christmas for those reasons. Honestly, I have no problem with that at all because no matter how the rest of the world chooses to acknowledge what Christmas is about, I know that it is about Jesus and I get the chance t...