Life
Leading While Suffering
There are only a few moments in our lives when our understanding and role as leaders change dramatically. The first for me was being inducted into my first pastoral position at the young age of 23. The next came when I became a husband at the age of 25, followed by becoming a father at…
Read MoreWhat Our Soul Needs
As followers of Jesus Christ, we can find ourselves living life with great tension. Pressures that hit us from multiple directions. They seem to be tied to our past decisions, current conditions, and future concerns. They manifest in the weight of the bountiful blessings of God or the harvest of sin in our lives. They…
Read MoreStuck Happens
I’m from a small town in Pennsylvania and recently we buried my Pap at the tiny chapel on the edge of his farm where he lived until he was 93 years old. Making the drive home was nostalgic. Miles and miles of country road twisting and turning through the wild forest leading me to the…
Read MoreDear Pastor…Please Don’t Quit!
This is the blog that almost never was. This morning, I opened my laptop while on an airplane to email the district office with my apologies for not delivering on my promised post. But instead, I ended up writing the following. I hope it encourages you… Less than 24 hours ago, I received the phone…
Read MoreKeeping Your Eyes on the Future During a Challenging Present
“I regret that I didn’t have time to write you a shorter letter.” I’ve seen that quote attributed to everyone from Blaise Pascal to Mark Twain and Benjamin Franklin. Whoever said it, the moral is that brevity is best and succinctness is sublime. I’ll do my best to heed their admonition and deny my pastoral…
Read MoreThe Tension In Working Out Our Salvation
I have this distinct picture of me in my earlier years of marriage, getting into a rhythm of going back upstairs to finish an argument. My wife and I would have argued about something. I would go downstairs to cool off (or to be dramatic). After not too many minutes I’d think of a few…
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