Dear Friends, Last night my wife and I went to a friend’s surprise birthday party. It was a fun time of celebrating her life, but also of meeting her friends, most of whom we don’t know. As we went around the room meeting people, my friend kept introducing me as her pastor - and the response I got was how it is with most folks who meet a “man of the cloth” for the first time: conversations change or stop altogether, handshakes are nervous, I’m offered water to drink - rath

Dear Friends, Recently I was wandering in a bookstore and noticed a book titled, “Ten Things I Wish The Bible Didn't Say.” I picked it up to see what it was about, and discovered that the author had listed out ten different things the Bible tells us about how to live the Christian life which are very challenging, and therefore, are things that the author wished it didn’t say. I sort of felt that same way this morning, after reading James 1:5-8, which says: “If you need wisdo

Dear Friends, This morning on the drive to work I was listening to the local news station on the radio. It was full of updates on the recent mass shootings in our country, along with reports of how pretty much every politician, celebrity, and public figure has been responding to these horrific acts of violence. And as is usually the case with these types of national tragedies, a lot of the comments and conversation were about why this happened, who is to blame, and how it c