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....
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...
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...
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,...
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 David...
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 in...
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...
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 use...
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...
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...