Blog
We place quotation marks around the Scripture we quote. It is right when quoting something not original to us. In doing so, what we quote can sound distant and not part of us like it is when quoting something from a book. Scripture is different. It is alive and active...
Because we live in a physical world and relate to the unfolding of time based on clocks and calendars, we can wrongly discern what we perceive as a delay. If we are not careful, we can wrongly interpret a delay as a lack of fulfillment of what God has promised. The...
Tomorrow is Father’s Day. As the day approaches, I think of my father, Charlie Elkins. He passed away 34 years ago. He was born in 1908 in a sod hut in the panhandle of Oklahoma near the town of Guymon. Outside the front door of their home was a horse hooked to a...
As I think of the killings in Connecticut my soul has been sickened hearing the cries of mothers and fathers. This has reminded me of a time recorded in scripture at the birth of Jesus when hundreds of little boys were senselessly murdered in Bethlehem by Herod who...
In the early 1990’s I was trained as a church-planting coach. I was also trained to interview prospective church-planters, conduct assessment interviews, coach pastors and help existing churches set up regional church planting strategies. Much of what I...
When I was in Bible College in early 1970’s, I attended a very conservative institution that has changed for the better over the years. I can still remember buying a plastic covered scripture reference note sheet that had one section titled, “Problem...
With the Mayan Calendar promising an end to life as we know it on December 21, and with the current condition of the world going through its normal cycles of life and death, it is easy for some to allow their hope in Christ to be hijacked by the doom-forecasters....
2013 will be a year the Church begins to experience the release of a Joseph Anointing. This Joseph Anointing will be like the story recorded in Genesis when God called Joseph from a pit to a palace to help Israel and the surrounding nations survive a coming season of...
Creating an apostolic community requires more than just reading good books on the subject or having discussion groups at the local Starbucks. Creating this kind of community requires providing traction points that will actually initiate change. This kind of...
Many years ago, when I was a student at Ministries Institute at Faith Center in Eugene, Oregon, I learned a valuable lesson about sermon preparation from my pastor, Roy Hicks, Jr. Roy was a profound teacher of God’s Word. He taught about God’s Kingdom. His focus...
I have been around the Church-world for many years. I have seen lots of buzzwords enter the vocabulary of the Church. A current word in our ecclesiastical buzz-a-sphere is, “missional.” It’s not a bad word – it’s a good word. In using this word we...
(The following letter was given to the congregation of Living Waters Church in Medford, Oregon, on Sunday, November 11, 2012, announcing a coming change in pastoral leadership that will take place in 2015.)...
Recently, I took part in a conference with people attending from all around the world. The worship was powerful. During one of the morning worship sessions the Lord began revealing to me a developing image of a father’s heart. I saw a father gently pushing one...
Recently, I was channel surfing and came upon the end of a NASCAR race. The winning driver crossed the finish line and took his victory lap. After the victory lap he pulled into the Winner’s Circle. What happened next was interesting. Once his car...
I live in an area surrounded by beautiful mountains. This area used to be part of the old Oregon Territory that was comprised of the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and bits of Montana and Wyoming. Before statehood, if someone was “going to Oregon”,...