I won’t sugarcoat it: the six weeks of mid-December through January were challenging for me as a pastor. There was church drama/trauma, lots of it, involving various people. I will also confess that I reached a point (very briefly), where I had thoughts of retiring.......
09 February, 2025
I had breakfast this week with a wonderful lady who attends our church. She brought with her a well-loved King James Bible that another woman had given her. So many verses her friend had underlined, so many margin notes. I was enriched by all of......
02 February, 2025
I learned something about myself last week from one of my daily devotionals. I’m “importunate.” I had never heard the word before. It means persistent, especially to the point of annoyance or intrusion. Yeah, that’s me. Before 2016, my importunity was on my own behalf. I......
26 January, 2025
I had a radio career that spanned three and a half decades. One of the first things I was taught was: “NO DEAD AIR.” Dead air is unplanned silence, usually the result of human error. To a station owner, dead air is throwing away inventory,......
19 January, 2025
It’s one of the great biblical mysteries. And it’s a sneaky one; so much so, a lot of people miss it. It’s in 1 Samuel 17 when the humble shepherd David is about to take on the 9-foot-tall Philistine soldier Goliath: 38 Then Saul dressed......
12 January, 2025
I started 2025 with a new Bible in a year program, guided by Terra Leigh Cobble. Her analysis of Genesis 3 included an observation I had never considered: Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking......
05 January, 2025
It is no secret that the Christmas season is not joyous for everyone. Financial issues, family issues, addiction issues, homelessness, loneliness, health issues: they can all rob people of their joy, especially when the expectation is we are filled with Christmas joy. Samaritan’s Heart Mission......
22 December, 2024
So, five plus years ago, we got a small chainsaw to help manage the trees around our house. If you follow the instructions for starting it, I mean precisely, it usually fires right up. Ah, but if you don’t, it’s usually a frustrating experience. I......
15 December, 2024
At Samaritan’s Heart Mission Church we tend to live by something I heard a few years ago: “Don’t ask God to bless what you’re doing, do what He is blessing.” What God has shown us in 2024 is that He is blessing our efforts to......
08 December, 2024
I realize that you may have the sound of Christmas music in your ears and an aversion to more turkey in your stomach as I write this. But before Thanksgiving becomes too distant in the rearview mirror, let’s take one more look at what Christ-following......
01 December, 2024
In my relatively short time as a pastor (five years at age 63), I have ministered to more than my share of imprisoned people. Some were in prison, or county jail. Others were imprisoned by alcoholism, drug addiction, or mental illness. Some were imprisoned by......
24 November, 2024
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them? Psalm 8:3-4 (NIV) What the psalmist here is telling us is that in the vastness......
13 November, 2024
I grew up on a dairy farm that was, even by 1970s standards, very small. One of my chores was to get the 20 cows that were grazing in a pasture down our “cow lane” to the barn for milking. One of those times, I......
10 November, 2024
I realize that the title of this post potentially limits the audience to church goers. I suppose I could have titled it: “Why Do You Go to Church/Why Don’t You Go to Church?” I believe explaining God’s purpose for a church family can also speak......
03 November, 2024
“Testify” and “testimony” can be challenging words. Most people in American society would associate them with courts of law. They are important words in the economy of Jesus Christ. Your testimony is your story of how Jesus changed your life. When you share that story,......
27 October, 2024
This year has seen Seymour Park, just north of Samaritan’s Heart Mission Church, become home to several unhoused people. It’s a blessing to be able to serve them. It’s easy to forget that the homeless must carry all their possessions with them wherever they go. ......
21 October, 2024
In the past year or so, I received two unpleasant reminders that I’m not getting any younger. One is that I can’t comfortably jog anymore, so I now walk. The other is that I’m cold, pretty much all the time. This reality struck me the......
13 October, 2024
As a child of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, I grew up riveted by the space program to put humans on the moon. I remember being glued to the TV during the Apollo 13 disaster as Mission Control worked feverishly to bring home the......
06 October, 2024
Matthew chapters 5-7 are some of the most daunting pages of the Bible: The Sermon on the Mount. It is here that Jesus tells us what being a Christ-follower looks like. We tend to find this instruction daunting because we misunderstand Jesus. He’s not telling......
29 September, 2024
We recently had something very exciting happen here at Samaritan’s Heart Mission Church (well, we found it exciting). We had our parking lot replaced. It had been in terrible condition for years, so it was exciting to see the old pavement broken up and removed......
22 September, 2024