People who study trends in today’s churches have made one thing clear: the greatest indicator of a church that is alive and growing isn’t its doctrine or the size of its building or even how well the preacher might preach. The greatest indicator of a healthy church is the level of participation. The greater the…

Oftentimes, when a person comes to me for counseling, what they actually want is to see change in someone else – their spouse, or children, or coworkers. What I then have to explain is that the only person they have the power to change is themselves. Not surprisingly, many counselling sessions end right there. There’s…

This past Sunday, I spoke about Billy Sunday’s big revival in Keokuk in the fall of 1904. According to a 114-year-old First Christian Church directory, Rev. Sunday wouldn’t come to Keokuk unless he had the unanimous support of local pastors. He knew that after his revival tent was taken down, it would be up to…

Last Sunday, we celebrated the gift of the Holy Spirit – complete with a long piece of red fabric coming down from the ceiling, draping along the cross, and pooling on the floor. Thank you to our Worship Ministry for this vivid reminder of the first Pentecost! For the next few weeks, we’ll be exploring…

Numbers are important in the Bible. For instance, the number “7” represents completeness and divine power. It was on the 7th day of creation God rested – the Sabbath. Seven series of sevens equals 49, so the number “50” is kind of like a Sabbath of Sabbaths. In Jewish tradition, every 50th year was a…

I remember reading somewhere that one of the unexpected outcomes of the Korean and Vietnam Wars was a new understanding of the importance of physical therapy. When field hospitals were overrun by wounded soldiers, doctors weren’t able to allow those who had already undergone surgery to lay in bed. Going against the common practices of…

We live in an amazing time. Knowledge and information are readily available to just about everyone. For instance, I’ve learned to do some pretty complicated things simply by watching someone else do it on YouTube. With the age of the Internet, we have vast amounts of stored knowledge at our fingertips. But where do we…

A while back, I received an email from a church leader that said, “I Love You!” in the subject line. By the time I saw it, she had followed it with another email saying, “Do NOT Open my last email!” It was a computer virus. I have to admit, however, I was a little disappointed.…

For disciples of Jesus, living faithfully is something we do both alone and together. In other words, we each need to take time to go into our closet and pray privately, but we also need to take our place in the community of faith. One supports the other! I read a story recently about some…

In the 23rd Psalm it says, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for thou art with me.” It’s a message of hope and courage. But have you ever wondered what it means to walk in the “shadow of death?” The most obvious answer is that…