Have you ever been angry, depressed, or anxious where the same negative or hurtful message keeps playing over and over in your head?  Of course you have.  We all experience the haunting of the negative message stuck on repeat in our minds. It can be that hurtful thing that someone

This past Sunday, I preached the first lesson in a Relationship series on Assertiveness. The part of the Bible the teaching came from was Matthew 18:15-20 where Jesus is teaching his followers how to get along with each other and navigate relationships through difficult moments. Right in the middle of

A lot of people don’t know the difference between niceness and kindness.  They sound similar, but they couldn’t be more different. The best example I’ve ever heard that illustrates the difference comes from a friend of mine while he was with the U.S. Special Forces fighting in Iraq. He had

Orthodox priest, professor, and author, Alexander Schmemann, has a wonderful book called “For the Life of the World.”  I would encourage anyone to read it, especially any Western Christian who is less familiar with the Eastern half of the family of Christianity. There is so much to share from this

British ethics professor and writer for the UK’s Independent, Paul Vallely says, “Most people in the West would be surprised by the answer to the question: who are the most persecuted people in the world? According to the International Society for Human Rights, a secular group with members in 38

There is a pretty well known physical trainer/coach that I like listening to on YouTube from time to time named Elliot Hulse.  One of my favorite videos that he has done was in response to an email where someone asked him, “How do I motivate my wife to work out

The 2017 Christmas Season – more accurately called “Advent” – has been really interesting in our household. My wife, Carrie, is 39.5 weeks pregnant with a due date on Christmas Day.  To add to the drama, our youngest was born two weeks early and Carrie has been having tricky contractions

If you are just starting out learning about the Bible and Christianity or trying to help someone get a good start, it can get overwhelming pretty fast. Not only is the Bible big, it’s not actually just one book.  The Bible contains sixty-six different books that are written by different

There are just three of you at the moment – seven, five, and a little brother due around Christmas.  Maybe there will be a four of you one day.  I hope so and I’m writing this already thinking of you. Some people will say that it is morbid to write

My wife and I are both pastors and get the opportunity on a pretty regular basis to marry people. When we are approached by someone we don’t know about officiating their wedding, this gives us a wonderful opportunity to get to talk to someone new about our faith and our