Dear Church Family, Is it possible to have "Good" conflict? Most often conflict is seen as negative because someone is causing someone else aggravation. But in order for change to occur a challenge to the status quo has to happen. When that challenge doesn't happen sometimes harm can continue. For example, aggressive behavior remains because people [...]
Dear Church Family, This year is certainly unique to me as I have never been so intimately aware of the coming harvest time. Being in the valley and surrounded by fields of potatoes, barley, alfalfa and hay has made me appreciate how fragile life on earth really is. If I remember correctly, it didn't rain last [...]
Dear Church Family, When churches do things together they represent an inkling of what the kingdom is supposed to be. On Sunday we will worship with Bowen Community Church on their site at 10:00 am for our traditional "Church in the Wildwood". We're hoping to be outside (so bring a sweater) but we may end [...]
7/17/2024 Dear Church Family, The amazing thing about being 63, a pastor, a father and now grandfather is the regular occurrences of life and death. Babies are born and others leave this earth. I just received news of another high school classmate departing. And I just came from visiting Kevin and Deb, our friends from [...]
7/10/2024 Dear Church Family, Today is an exciting day. My daughter Randi, gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Marianna Elizabeth. She and her husband, Joe, live in Denver. Tracy will be flying up from Scottsdale tomorrow and I'll pick her up at the Denver airport. For the last several months we've been trying to [...]
Dear Church Family, Just like every bottle of medicine or container of a dangerous chemical, they come with a warning, I feel obligated to put a warning label on "CHURCH". Here it is: Warning: Reading God’s Word and praying will reveal your greatest weaknesses, unveil hidden sins, and transform you into the person God intends [...]
Dear Church Family, I have found it so helpful to read the Bible with the lens of "How did they pray?" We often are very rigid and imagine that there's only one way...the Presbyterian way. So, if you ever go to a Catholic, Lutheran or Pentecostal church, you are tempted to wrinkle your nose and [...]
Dear Church Family, The old hymn "Take it to the Lord in Prayer" has a line that goes like this: Are we weak and heavy-laden, Cumbered with a load of care? Precious Savior, still our refuge— Take it to the Lord in prayer; It reminds me that we often [...]
Dear Church Family, C.S. Lewis said “It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he [...]