Archive for the 'Undercover Pastor' Category

Come, Labor On!

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

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 [...]

Speaking of habits…

Sunday, December 14th, 2008

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!

Keeping Habits

Thursday, September 25th, 2008

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 [...]

Why would God confuse us?

Saturday, September 13th, 2008

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 [...]

Busy-ness vs. Thankfulness

Monday, September 1st, 2008

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 [...]

In memoriam: Edith Whitney, 102 years of life and faith

Thursday, August 21st, 2008

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 [...]

Pain and Pastors

Saturday, August 16th, 2008

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, [...]

Dreams vs. Reality

Sunday, August 10th, 2008

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 [...]

Flu and Thankfulness

Thursday, July 31st, 2008

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 [...]

Crossing the Stormy Lake

Monday, July 28th, 2008

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 [...]

The front or the back of the line?

Friday, July 18th, 2008

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!  [...]

It’s official - I’m my father

Saturday, July 12th, 2008

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 [...]

Put my crayons up high, Dad

Sunday, July 6th, 2008

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 [...]

The ultimate water cooler for really lazy people…

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

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 [...]

Worship space decisions revisited

Monday, June 30th, 2008

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 [...]

Thankfulness: Not So Obvious

Sunday, June 29th, 2008

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 [...]

Small churches have a unique call

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

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 [...]

Decisions, decisions!

Saturday, June 14th, 2008

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 [...]

Waiting for God

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008

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…  [...]

First African-American Presidential Nominee

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008

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 [...]