I only grew to love prayer once I expanded my definition of prayer. Growing up in the church the definition for prayer that I was given was “Talking to God”. “Just talk to God,” I was often told. This understanding of prayer is not wholly wrong, but it is unhelpful. One can define the ocean […]
I have been practicing Sabbath for almost ten years now but I might just now be learning what it means to take a Sabbath. Shortly after Amanda and I were married and began pastoring in Vale, Oregon, we went on a retreat designed for those in the process of ordination. One of the workshops was […]
A couple of weeks ago I waded into Idaho’s Salmon River to do a little trout fishing. I was told it was a well known spot and sure enough there were a couple groups already fishing and having some success. I made my way downstream of the second group, leaving about 100 feet or so […]
Grace. The other day I was trying to make a left turn onto a busy road. A car stopped to give me space to merge. It was an undeserved gift. The driver did not have to offer me this space. It ensured they would get to their destination later than they would have otherwise. This […]
My go-to advice on prayer is “pray as you can, not as you can’t”. I did not come up with this and I have never been able to discover who said it originally. If someone has found a form of prayer that “works” then I would never want to discourage them. God hears and receives […]
A couple months back we were driving through downtown Naches when Amanda said, “Look, Starry Night!” On display outside ReD’find and Consign was a canvas print replica of Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night – one of the great works of western art and my personal favorite painting. We made an unscheduled stop and now […]
The Local Pastor 