Mike Skinner

High School Chaplain & Executive Director of @CruciformHope

[Mike Skinner @mike_skinner]

Been gone for a while so want everyone to know I’m still here. Who did it better?

[Mike Skinner @mike_skinner]

@v_parth7 @cleggypdc @jjacky Do you mind explaining what you mean by that for me?

[Mike Skinner @mike_skinner]

The kingdom of God does not arrive at the end of a self-improvement program.

It arrives as a gift, Lamb-stained and cross-shaped, for those who are at the very end of their rope.

[Mike Skinner @mike_skinner]

The gospel doesn’t merely forgive us.

It exposes that lie by revealing the God who has always been moving toward us in Christ.

[Mike Skinner @mike_skinner]

“Evil seeks to pinpoint your pain and force you to experience it just enough to want relief, comfort, escape, or others to blame, hate, or take vengeance on.”

[Mike Skinner @mike_skinner]

That last sentence is the one I can’t stop thinking about.

Every temptation carries a promise.
Every accusation carries a story.

Beneath both is the same ancient lie:

Love does not have you.

[Mike Skinner @mike_skinner]

“Suffering is not eliminated by the resurrection but transformed by it.”

- Kathryn Greene-McCreight, who wrote that as a priest living with bipolar disorder.

Not a tidy consolation.
A report from inside the dark.

[Mike Skinner @mike_skinner]

New @ @CruciformHope: https://t.co/V7xlJLeshV

[Mike Skinner @mike_skinner]

Your kid's picture of God isn't built from your sermons. It's built from what it felt like to need you.

Every parent I know finds that terrifying. But it really isn’t: the secure kids don't come from flawless homes. They come from homes with rupture AND repair.

More below:

[Mike Skinner @mike_skinner]

New essay on Substack. It closes with beatitudes written over specific conditions.
https://t.co/NX8qpnO3m7

[Mike Skinner @mike_skinner]

The Beatitudes are not assignments. They are announcements. Here's why that changes everything for the mentally ill.

[Mike Skinner @mike_skinner]

I wrote this from inside the country, not as a tourist. Panic disorder, agoraphobia, MDD, treatment-resistant depression. I have skin in this argument.

[Mike Skinner @mike_skinner]

The fixing is not your job. The carrying is.

New essay, The Mat Is the Ministry: https://t.co/xIyG7hvvvJ

[Mike Skinner @mike_skinner]

Four men carried their paralyzed friend across town on a mat. When the crowd blocked the door, they tore a hole in the roof and lowered him down in front of Jesus.

They could not heal their friend. So they carried him to the one who could.