You know what an EGR is, right? That’s a person for whom Extra Grace is Required. Some people are easy to love. With some folks you have to work just a little harder at it. But then there are those for whom, if you’re going to be real about showing them God’s love, you know […]

Don’t misunderstand my title. By “The Whole Church,” I don’t mean “the entire church.” I mean the church made whole. The broken church you and I are members of – transformed. The carnally-inclined church where we worship, healed and holy. But brother Don, our church isn’t “broken” or “carnally-inclined.” You ought to see them when […]

Several years ago Ruthie and I met a man with a most challenging and unusual job. He told us he was a hospice counselor for children. Both of us have had some medical exposure so we knew that hospice was a term used to describe what is basically end-of-life care. Difficult enough with, say, the […]

I have a question for you: How recently have you attended a Muslim mosque? When was the last time you worshiped in a Jewish synagogue? How long since you slipped into the back row of a Buddhist service? Unless you’re a member of one of those faith groups it has probably been quite a while. […]

Pleasant Hill, (population 5,665) sits quietly in a verdant section of the state of Oregon, just south of Eugene. To call it a sleepy little community might be a bit over-dramatic. Lots of good people live there; not many of them make headlines. That is until Monday morning, March 2, 2009. A few minutes after […]

Fifty years ago or more I came across a 4-sentence quote that changed how I do ministry. I’d already been a pastor for a dozen years, but somehow in my training I had never picked up on this irrefutable principle. So to make sure I would never forget it I wrote it on a small […]

A while ago a new couple began attending our church. The more they got acquainted with the folks in our congregation the more they loved us. And the more they heard the story of Jesus and His last-day message proclaimed from our pulpit the more they fell in love with the Author of the story. […]

Recently we talked in this space about listening for the whisper of God as He seeks to coach us on His errands. I think you’ll love this current, true story. Our friend, Jim, living in the continental US, wanted to phone a colleague in Hawaii. He punched in the number, the phone rang a couple […]

I’ve probably driven a thousand rental cars. Well, maybe not quite that many but I spent a lot of years traveling in various ministry roles, and the rental car companies considered me a good customer. But it just came to me that I never washed a rental car. I brought a lot of them back […]

Some call it a whisper. Some call it a nudge. You may have sensed it as a prompt. Whatever the definition, I’m sure you have felt it, too. It’s not an audible sound, but it’s as real as though it were. A familiar Scripture term is “a still, small voice.” There’s no predictable pattern; it […]