In case you didn’t know, it takes about six hours to push mow a little more than an acre. My wife and I were blessed to buy a house in corn country in our move to Southern Indiana. Our new home is situated on about an acre. The lawn is a big change from the doll-sized townhouse, which had a yard with the same surface area as our kitchen table. Since the previous owners of our new home were not the least bit motivated to trim the grass after we made an offer, it came with shin-high foliage. So Read more [...]

After packing two or three boxes, I was ready for dinner. Two weeks ago my wife and I were in the middle of stuffing corrugated cardboard full of our most precious belongings wrapped in the Sunday funnies. Moving is excitingly painful. Erin had volunteered for one of the chaperone posts at our church’s student lock-in. She in turn volunteered me to finish packing our 900 square foot cracker box. We had finally sold our place, bought another, and were moving on up to Southern Indiana, closer to Read more [...]

I love what I do! Being a pastor is such a joy. While the fickle complaints and occasional backbiting occurs, I am blessed to have a congregation that by-and-large supports me and their fellow believer. We certainly have areas in our church where we can improve, but I am impressed by the resiliency of the people and the desire to return to health. Exemplified this week at Vacation Bible School, the church united around the common goal of seeing children come to Christ. One child came forward today Read more [...]

I am reading Oswald Chambers’ My Utmost for His Highest as part of my daily devotional time. The following excerpt from today’s reading struck me. If you have not read this classic devotional, it is one of the most encouraging and challenging books ever written. "Lovest thou Me? . . . Feed My sheep." John 21:16 Jesus did not say - Make converts to your way of thinking, but look after My sheep, see that they get nourished in the knowledge of Me. We count as service what we do in the way of Christian Read more [...]

The church needs to be in crisis mode. At the Southern Baptist Convention last week I learned a scary statistic. Of the “Builder” generation (those that fought in WWII), about 65% were Christians. Of the “Boomer” generation, about 35% were Christians. Of GenXers, about 15% are Christians. And of the youngest generation, it is estimated that only 4-8% are Christians. I think we can all admit that we could do a better job of reaching the world. But quite frankly, we aren’t reaching our own Read more [...]