Undercover Pastor

Are the currently-popular roadside memorials a sign that the world has rejected the church or an opportunity to reach out to meet people’s needs?

I have to admit it.  For years, people have talked to me about the importance of morning prayer, of starting out each day by dedicating it – and myself – to God.  I have tried a bunch of times to do it too.  But I find it hard.
Here’s the deal.  I’m not a morning person [...]

On a recent coffee run I saw a sign at a local restaurant located near a major freeway.   “No Public Restroom (Customers Only),” it read.
The sign was posted on the front door where everyone would see it – in fact, that and the hours were the only things posted there.  It reminded me of a [...]

I saw the Super Bowl ad for a free grand slam breakfast at Denny’s on February 3rd.  And I was planning to take the family.  Only each Denny’s we visited had a line around the block.  Apparently, Denny’s served 2 million breakfasts that morning.  They estimate that they got $50 million worth of free (positive) publicity [...]

I’m about halfway through a three-week vacation from my position as pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church.  After 5-1/2 years as pastor with no more than two weeks off at any one time (except to have kids!), I started to feel tired, and it was taking more and more to recover.  I later learned that psychologists [...]

I’ve noticed a big difference between the assumptions my 6-year-old son makes and the ones I made at the same age. I used to assume that everyone went to some kind of church. Johnny is surprised to learn that someone goes to church. He realizes that he lives in a post-Christian world.
I hadn’t realized this [...]

The annual Presbyterian Church “Bible Content Exam” happened again today. And as of this evening, my web tool for studying the Bible – mainly for people taking that test, has been used 163440 times! I never would have imagined that 9 years ago. It’s very cool that I get to help so [...]

I have the week off from church so we were planning to worship at another church as we generally do.  but t his week, Lydia is sick with some kind of stomach flu.  Rather than leave Eleanor and Lydia at home alone, we decided to have “home church” today.
I put on some recorded hymns as [...]

Looks like I kicked the blogging habit. Let’s see if I can get back into it. I’ve been learning a whole lot in the last few months. More soon, God willing!

People talk a lot about breaking bad habits, but keeping good habits can be just as hard – sometimes harder.
I know this because I just did my old weight program at the gym for the first time in just about a year.  Now I could make plenty of excuses.  I stopped last year because I [...]

In his well-known daily devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers writes
“Ye know not what ye ask.” Matthew 20:22
There are times in spiritual life when there is confusion, and it is no way out to say that there ought not to be confusion. It is not a question of right and wrong, but a [...]

I’ve been busy lately. There are a lot of big things happening at our church plus we have three kids, two of whom are starting new schools this year (one at preschool and one at kindergarten) plus one eight-month-old!   I’ve been working really hard and feeling tired. Sometimes exhaustion can rob you of your joy.But [...]

My grandmother died almost two weeks ago now at 102, and I now have the bittersweet task of officiating at her memorial service.  My grandmother didn’t have an easy life.  As a polio survivor, her reaction time was slow and her sense of balance was unreliable.  She lived with a lot of pain at various [...]

The word pastor comes from our job as shepherds.  Of course, Jesus is the real shepherd, but we pastors try our best to represent him well as we seek to care for his flock.  Jesus taught us that he’s the kind of shepherd who cares if a single sheep goes astray and wanders into danger, [...]

Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of my first day as pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church.  I can still clearly remember talking to the pastor nominating committee at my face-to-face interview with them back in 2003.  After they asked me their questions, I asked them a few, including what would you to see happen in the [...]

I’ve got the stomach flu, and it has completely ruined my plans.  Sure, I should have been prepared when my son Johnny got it a few days ago, but I lived in denial.  I’ll spare you the unplesant details, but the part of this that’s interesting is that on Wednesday, someone in our Revelation Bible [...]

During my vacation this year, I had the good fortune of being able to spend a week at my grandmother’s cabin at Donner Lake.  And this year, my aunt had left a kayak for us to use.  The previous night I had tried it out and taken my sons on a short loop in the [...]

Eleanor and I were headed for a rare cup of coffee without the kids and during the five-minute drive, we encountered two different people who were angry over someone getting into the lane of traffic ahead of them.  Eleanor and I actually let a couple of people in and then found a great parking place!  [...]

I believe I’ve blogged about this before, but lately in Northern California, we’ve had high heat and smoke everywhere from the many fires burning in our state.  This, along with high energy costs, leads to a new urgency to…  wait for it… keep the door closed!
I don’t want to cool the neighborhood!  (Of course I took engineering [...]

Lately, my son Joshua has had some trouble with drawing on the floor, walls, furniture, and windows with crayons.  We’ve always had an understanding that crayons are only to be used on paper, and he can answer the question, “Where do we used crayons?”  “On paper, Dad.”  But temptation strikes, and our little artist feels [...]