And what a GREAT week it was! Pastor Aaron led a team of staff, including Cass Delp, Chris Smith, Ned Keene, Garrett Lowe, and myself, through a week of baptisms for 45 people, with a few hundred family and friends in attendance. The stories ranged from sweet to astonishing (and many were both). The ages ranged […]
I was just thinking some more about the small stuff (see the post from yesterday). Then this thought hit me: Love is in the small stuff. Love is in the details. If Becky needed a kidney transplant, I would not hesitate for a minute to say, “Here, have one of mine.” So why do I […]
Most of us overestimate the power of big things and we underestimate the power of small things. Most of us overestimate the power of the EVENT and we underestimate the power of the PROCESS. It has been said that the devil is in the details. He may well be, but did you ever wonder why? […]
Emotions! They are what’s contagious. Good ones and bad ones. Happiness, excitement, hope, calm, patience … and anger, sadness, frustration, irritation… You’ve heard the phrase, “If momma ain’t happy, ain’t no one happy.” I have looked for the origins of this phrase. A 10-minute web search asking the question did not yield much insight. Well, […]
What do the following words have in common? Latin – vivet Spanish – venir Portuguese – viver French – vivre Each one is the word for LIVE. English departs from these other languages in how we spell the word, but you can see the similarity. “To revive” is to re-live or re-life. It is to […]
WARNING: Theology Ahead! Some Thinking Required! Truth Matters! Living the Truth Matters Most of All! This post is a little longer and will take more effort. At the end, there is a worship video of one of those great songs we sing at Living Word. In 1972, a book on the sociology of religion was […]
We are distracted and we are interrupted. We are busy, hurried, falling behind, and we feel it! We think we can multitask. We try to multitask. The fact is your brain does not multitask, except when it comes to the lower level behaviors. In other words, you can chew food and talk at the same time. Whether […]
In Him Was Life. I stared at those words for some time. They are found in John 1:4. The entire verse reads like this: “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.” I had read them at least 100 times before! This time, they hit me with new power. I […]
The Origins of One Idea That Matters Most to Me Many (most) of you know I love to help people flourish. That theme gripped my heart and mind many years ago. A friend recently asked me how this idea grabbed hold of me. Good question! My first answer is that the sovereign work of the […]
And it was really quite odd that it did! As I thought about it, up to that point I had hardly traveled outside York County. I had been to a few different states by then, but not many. Now, a few months after becoming a Christian, I was fascinated by the idea of global missions. Other […]