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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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! [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Today is the 40th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior. I think everyone in this country owes him a debt of gratitude for raising the consciousness of a nation that has always prided itself on being the land of the free.
Well, it’s not over. Since I’m a white man, [...]
I’m on my way home from the Presbyterian Church’s Evangelism Conference. It’s clear to me that evangelism has really changed since the days when you could follow a script or hand people a booklet and they would make a decision to be a Christian. These days it’s all about having relationships with people and about [...]