Blog
Almost 50 years ago, in my first few months of pastoring, I was sitting around a table with five other young and inexperienced pastors. We were in a small meeting room at Montana State University in Billings, Montana. Seated with us was Jerry Cook, pastor of East Hill...
In my normal morning routine, I am awake before the first light of the morning appears in the sky. In those pre-dawn mornings, I can hear birds begin to sing as they anticipate the coming dawn. Recently, I’ve been listening to instrumental worship music to...
There is more to a verse than just its opening line. Surrounding passages of Scripture give us a broader view of what the verse is addressing. Take the first part of Psalm 46:10, for example: “Be still and know that I am God.” The surrounding context...
I’ve seen it happen many times in my lifetime: someone sins and disgraces the Lord and the mission of the Church, and a flurry of exposure takes place. When sin is discovered in the camp, people want a pound of flesh to prove their point, punishing the guilty beyond...
All people are spiritual beings, but not all are spiritually minded. Being spiritually minded only comes in a relationship with Jesus, where our minds are renewed from dead spirituality to a resurrected way of thinking. That resurrected way of thinking will affect how...
When I was a young boy, my brother and I walked out into the orchard that bordered our home. We found a bee’s nest. As boys will do, we shook the nest. The bees came out enraged, looking for the flesh of the intruders. We both got stung multiple times as we tried to...
There are constants across all spiritual disciplines in the Church. One constant is the need for confession and repentance. Confession is our agreement with God that what we have done is a sin. Repentance is the act of turning away from those sins and living a life...
Many reports are circulating within the Church about failed leadership. Those reports can be discouraging. If we are not careful about how we process those bad reports, they can affect us negatively, taking our eye off the most essential ball. Sadly, we are drawn to...
The trumpet of the Lord is announcing to God’s people that it’s time to move on from where we had previously camped. He is moving us beyond our current confusion about failed leaders and beyond old ways of thinking that do not reveal His glory. The Lord has a new...
Over the last few years, as Jan was writing her five volumes of blessings from the book of Isaiah, I have seen the power and importance of blessings and how they affect the one who receives them. When either Jan or I have read a blessing, we have seen the...
The Lord is clarifying the purpose of our worship. This is not about the style or location of our worship. It’s about the substance of our worship. This is not limited to a public worship service. It affects all areas of our lives – how we lead our families, how we do...
As Jan and I were walking through the historic cemetery in our small town, we passed by our grave sites. We bought those sites over 20 years ago when we first moved to town. We had the grave marker installed a couple of years ago, so our kids wouldn’t have to...
Amid all the turmoil taking place within the Church, we are being given a gift. We have entered a time where the confidence of the Church is being tested and examined. In that examination, we will see who and what we have been following. At the end of that...
All of us can pluck verses out of the surrounding context and use those verses to support our ideas. It’s in the context where a deeper understanding is revealed. Some of that revelation may be difficult for some of us to understand. It’s not just an Old Testament...
A pastor friend of mine, Ryan Rhoden, was asked to mediate between some believers in his church who were experiencing disagreement on a particular issue. . He said, "I will bring my bad theology, and you bring yours, and let’s sit down and talk.” The pastor was...