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 [...]
When I was a kid, my dad had to make a rule that you could never take the last ice cube from the little ice bin on our freezer drawer without opening and refilling a fresh tray of ice. So my sister and I always left exactly one cube. Then Dad changed the rule to [...]
In response to my earlier post about the difficulty of making space in a smaller church, Becky made this suggestion:
Have you thought of starting a new (small) church? I love the idea of small churches being so appealing that they multiply like bunnies.
It’s really a reasonable thing to think about too - a different model [...]
Yesterday afternoon, my kids were starting to get a little bit of cabin fever. It was hot, and the air had been smoky for most of the day, but by late afternoon, the air had cleared a bit and a cool breeze was blowing. “Why don’t you go outside and play, Johnny?” I [...]
I had a wonderful opportunity to address pastors and elders from small churches at the Presbyterian Church’s biannual General Assembly on Monday. I really do believe in the ministry of small churches. By their definition, we are Trinity are now a medium-size church, but we’re still a lot smaller than many of the churches around [...]
The past couple of weeks, I’ve been troubled in my spirit… Is that good Bible language for spiritually messed up?
Our church has experienced a lot of growth lately and we’re having growing pains. That’s partly because our building is way too small. It was built in a time when a) churches didn’t have parking lots [...]
I don’t like waiting at all. It’s annoying. And then there’s all that uncertainty.
I preached about waiting for God on Sunday. Then as I was feeling frustrated today about a couple of things, I happened to hear two different people on the car radio at two different times talking about waiting on God… [...]
Today was a historic day. I was trying to explain to my 5-year-old son why the nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate for President of the United States is such a big deal. He didn’t get it. I had to explain to him that there are still people in [...]
We’ve landed on Mars! Check out news from the Phoenix Mars lander.
A recent study claims that kids in daycare have better immune systems than those with stay-at-home parents, possibly leading to a reduced likelihood of leukemia. See the New York Times article here.
This makes me feel a lot better about the various sicknesses that some of our church kids passed around recently. You see, as it [...]
My wife woke me up for morning prayer this morning and I went back to sleep. This was a bad choice because there’s a lot going on in my life and the life of our church right now. As a church grows, it can no longer connect everyone “automatically.” It’s a much more conscious and [...]
I was just reading Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening devotional for this evening, and it referred to Job 22:21. In the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version), it says, “Agree with God, and be at peace; in this way good will come to you.” In the NIV (New International Version), it says, “Submit to God and be [...]
Last week, I attended a “round table” of sexual assault survivors and members of the clergy. The honesty of the six women who had survived sexual assault was extraordinary - and extremely difficult to hear. But the hardest part of what they had to say was the part about how their churches had treated them. [...]
In Memoriam
Oscar Myra Mendoza Whitney (Myra)
1994-2008
Last night (April 30), our long-haired miniature dachshund, Myra escaped from the back yard. When we realized it late last night, I went searching for her in the neighborhood and after about 45 minutes, found her across Jefferson Blvd. (a busy, highway-like street with 4 lanes). She had been hit by [...]