News & Updates

Last week we saw people clamoring to win the big Powerball Lottery jackpot.  Three people  (tickets) realized their dreams, redemption, salvation, and aspirations that may or may not last a lifetime.  So many less than lucky losers with high hopes of holding just the right ticket were dashed by the hard rocks of materialism, which ultimately is a horrible idol to ascribe to. Last night I saw another group of folks clamoring.  Some seventy-five had lined up and signed up,…

I have been a pastor for some thirty years. Most of the previous decades have featured my propensity to walk on thin ice. Walking on thin ice is a risky and precarious way to go. The familiar walking on eggshells is a closely related, paranoid cousin to walking on thin ice. It can wear you out. In my early years, I helped create a three-church youth ministry daring to bring three churches together. We took a boatload of teens from…

Oswald Chambers writes, “In Christian work our initiative and motivation are too often simply the result of realizing that there is work to be done and that we must do it. Yet that is never the attitude of a spiritually vigorous saint. His aim is to achieve the realization of Jesus Christ in every set of circumstances.” Dallas Willard comments, “Grace is not opposed to effort, but to earning.” There is much to do, but not to the neglect of…

A very young, redheaded boy came running to his momma from water’s edge. He was screaming and crying and wailing and gave grave looks of anguish. “What is wrong?” piped the mom. “The water I put into my sand castle will not stay in! It keeps getting out (wail, wail, blah, blah)” cried the young boy. All of this was taking place less than ten feet from my beach reading perch. “Honey, would you come take care of your son?”…

The news last night featured price increases from our beloved Starbucks.  A small coffee camouflaged as tall will now cost over two bucks.  This was a lead news story.  It felt more like advice than news.  The implied advice was to think twice before buying coffee at Starbucks. News, as N.T. Wright suggests, involves a significant event changing the future and transforming the present. Over the past several weeks, my friend Fitz has been driving me crazy with texts about…

              This is Shark Week on the Discovery Channel.  We just happen to be at the beach for my annual study break.  Perfect.  At lunch today, we watched an episode showing the first ever video of a shark attack on a human.  The dude attacked was a researcher believing sharks don’t attack unless provoked.  So… as the ground breaking film showed, this now-limping shark researcher was standing still in shallow, shark-infested waters somewhere in…

An Ohio friend has been graciously checking out my study break blogs, and sent this email of questions:  “When did we all, as Christians, decide to be judgmental of others to the detriment of examining ourselves? And collectively, why does it so frequently feel Christians are more bent on being crusaders instead of just simply touching those around them and showing love?”  Great questions. Last night we ventured out to a pier immediately after our family beach photo shoot.  There were…

According to the Washington Post, Gale Curcio recently ate a chocolate bar laced with 300 mg. of THC from cannabis oil.  Legalized pot for recreational use is growing across many states.  Somehow the candy bar from California made it to her coffee table.  She unknowingly took a small bite, but went into an induced psychedelic state ending up in the local ER for tests.  With a slow-but-eventual diagnosis, the doctors were glad Gale ate only a small portion.  They were…

Another new word has suddenly poked it’s way in our cultural vocab.  SCOTUS.  With the recent ruling of the Supreme Court Of The United States to make same-sex marriages legal in all 50 states, language is not the only thing changing.  Opinions about the LGBTQ community are shifting in favor of the vocal and highly visible minority (less than 2%).  Christians everywhere are scrambling.  What are we to do?  How are we to fight for Biblical truth?  What prophecy is…