Dear Friends, Last week one of the men from our church committed suicide. I don't know what went through his mind when he made that choice, but what I do know is that his death has left a big wound in the lives of his family and friends. As I've talked with many of them, one of the biggest questions that comes up is, “Why would God allow this to happen?” The truth is, there are a lot of reasons why God does what He does, and allows what He allows, and I couldn’t begin to adequately cover that topic – especially in an email. But for me, one of the reasons that has stood out the most can be found in Romans 5:1-5, which tells us: “Therefore, since we have been made right in God’s sight by f

Dear Friends, I have been a fan of the author C.S. Lewis since I was in fourth grade, when I first read his book, “The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe. It was a story that really captured my attention, especially the part when the White Witch offers Turkish Delight to Edmund to get him to betray his brother and sisters. It really had an impact on me because I couldn't imagine how someone could betray their own family just for something to eat. The conclusion my fourth-grade mind came to was that this Turkish Delight stuff had to be amazing in order to convince someone to do something so terrible. So imagine my surprise when a few years ago I had the opportunity to actually try Turkish D

Dear Friends, I recently read a newsletter from a friend who is serving as a missionary in a country where Buddhism is the predominant religion. In the newsletter, my friend was recounting a story of going with a neighbor to one of the Buddhist temples where this neighbor worshipped. As I read the story, I found myself thinking, “Thank goodness I’m not like that neighbor! How can they seriously worship something other than God?” No sooner had that thought passed through my mind than it hit me - I do the same thing. Now, don’t panic and assume I have Buddhist statues set up in my living room with incense burning in front of them - because I don’t. That’s because my idols aren’t made of s

Dear Friends, This morning I had a conversation with a woman from our church who’s been waiting for God to give her clear direction in a specific area of her life. The challenge is, God hasn’t given that direction yet, and so she’s getting impatient. As we talked about it, she said, “Pastor, I’m tired of waitin’ and doin’ nothin’ - it’s wearin’ me out!” I could relate to her words, as I’ve also had times in my life when I’ve struggled to wait on God. And just like my friend, the waiting has worn me out. But as I’ve processed this over the years, it’s occurred to me that part of the problem is that we can often think of “waiting” as something that’s passive. So as we wait, all the while

Dear Friends, Last week we walked through a very difficult situation with one of the young, single moms in our church. For several weeks the biological father of her child had been getting increasingly violent with her, and her family - and then last week, it all came to a head. The father shot out the tires on this young mom’s car, with her sisters sitting in the car, and then took the one year old child, and refused to return her. As you can imagine, it was a very difficult situation, and we struggled with a lot of fear and worry for our friend, her daughter, and her family. The situation was frustrating in all sorts of ways, especially trying to help our friend navigate the local legal