by Andrew Beard | Sep 30, 2025 | Words from Pastor Andrew
Recently, we were driving to drop our kids off at school in the morning, and out of nowhere—totally disconnected from what everyone else in the car was talking about—one of our kids said, “What if there were 3-D t-shirts?”
Well…technically, t-shirts are already 3-D…but I get the question.
This is completely normal in our home, and I’m guessing in most of our lives. One of the people in our family will just throw out a completely off-the-wall or bizarre thought that doesn’t seem to be rooted in anything the rest of us are talking about. I’m likely the most guilty of this in our home…Sarah can attest. I am sure you don’t do this…but you likely know someone who does, right?
Regularly, most of us are in our own thoughts instead of being fully present. We’re thinking something and, for some reason, we assume everyone else is thinking about the same thing or at least on the same page of curiosity as us or cares deeply about that seemingly random thing.
We are busy people with busy minds. And this scattered way of living isn’t just in our brains. We have busy and tired lives. We are constantly getting hit with an onslaught of information and misinformation, opinions and responses, push notifications, alerts, posts—the list goes on—that keep us from ever slowing our bodies and our minds down.
How in the world, will we ever be able to hear from Jesus if we never stop?
by Andrew Beard | Oct 7, 2024 | Words from Pastor Andrew
In 2015, the Kansas City Royals went to the world series and won. That was the last time they played in the post season. Until this year.
In 2017, the Kansas City Chiefs went 4 and 0 to start their season. Despite their post season success, that was the last time they started so strong. Until this year.
Tonight, the Chiefs and the Royals are playing at the same time.
For those of us from Kansas City…our attention will be divided. We will all spend an evening with split screens.
But no matter if you are from KC or not, we live in a world that is so distracted, attention divided between so many things. Most of our “time saving” devices and efficiency technology has actually caused us to waste more time in meaningless distractions and never give anything our full attention.
As I’m writing this, my computer keeps giving me notifications about “tips” to use it better, calendar and news alerts, and my phone updates me about weather, amazon deliveries, and my sons’ grades at school.
And…I have most of my notifications and updates always turned off because I get easily distracted.
I think we are likely getting so used to distractions, that many of us rarely have times when we aren’t staring at a screen (or multiple ones at the same time), multitasking, thinking about other concerns and worries, and giving nothing our full attention. This is often knowingly or unknowingly done to make ourselves feel productive, accomplished, happy, fulfilled…or maybe disconnected or distracted from reality or formulate our own reality.
As C.S. Lewis says,
“Human history is the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.”
We are all living with split screens.
by Andrew Beard | Aug 1, 2022 | Words from Pastor Andrew
No one has ever described me as a yard guy. No one has ever come to me to ask for gardening advice. I have never been described as having a green thumb. Now, you might describe Sarah that way, but definitely not me. When Sarah and I bought our first house I in Kansas City it had a yard…but I did not have a lawn mower.
