Blog
Jan and I were invited to a conference where I was one of the speakers. The conference host put us up in a beautiful Airbnb with a swimming pool. After a long day of meetings, I wanted to unwind. I donned my swimsuit and grabbed a towel and headed to the pool. The...
When we are surrounded by the enemies of truth and it seems that evil alliances are ruling the day, it is too easy to forget our most important weapon in spiritual warfare – worship. Worship can become just another item on our spiritual checklist reducing worship to a...
Twice, I have seen the image of a great ship at a dock with its mooring lines unattached. The vessel represented the United States. Over time, the mooring lines had been cast off through deception and delusion leaving the vessel vulnerable. Our ship of state has...
One of the most stress-filled things I have ever done was being an entry man on a SWAT team. Entry men were the first members of the team to breach a door and cross the threshold of a house to gain entrance. We never knew what was waiting for us on the other...
For years, I have heard some of my brothers and sisters in Christ appealing for a totally non-violent approach to life. I like the idea and wish somehow this could be our reality in every circumstance. I dislike the thought of having violence as an option...
It doesn't take long to explore our social media sites and realize in some areas of the Internet you can find conversations that resemble "The New Killing Fields." These are places where we conveniently destroy another person by accusation and narrow personal...
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.)...