On Being Truly “Blessed”: Reflections From a Pastor’s HeartYesterday I preached the opening lines of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1–6). Today I’m still sitting with them, and honestly, they w...  Read More

He Is Risen… Now What?Reflections on Hearing – Really Hearing – the Sermon on the MountYesterday, as I stood in front of our church family and said, “He is risen,” I could feel the weight and wonder o...  Read More

Easter Sunday is always full.Full of music, full of color, full of familiar words and faces. Full of visitors who said “yes” to an invitation and are now wondering quietly if it was a good idea. Full ...  Read More

Palm Sunday is one of those days in the church calendar that we can easily reduce to crafts, palm branches, and maybe a childhood memory of a flannelgraph Jesus sliding off a felt donkey.For some of u...  Read More

If you’re anything like me, your days run on a kind of autopilot rhythm.You wake up at a certain time.  Maybe you make coffee a very particular way (I may or may not have an embarrassingly detailed br...  Read More

 (A Pastor’s Reflections on Matthew 4:18–22)Every week I climb into a semi truck and drive Washington’s highways. I’ve done it for over 30 years. It’s big, it’s loud, and there are moments when it’s g...  Read More

This past Sunday I had the privilege of walking our church family through Matthew 4:12–17, a short but absolutely pivotal passage in the Gospel of Matthew. It marks the beginning of Jesus’ public mini...  Read More

Spring in the Wilderness: Why Feeling “Off” Doesn’t Mean God Is GoneReflections from the Pastor’s ChairThis past weekend, my wife Ruth and I slipped away for a short retreat.Nothing dramatic, nothing ...  Read More

Christ Is Risen: Clearing the Path, Not Adding the WeightA pastor’s reflection on Matthew 3 and a week of “turning”“Christ is risen. He is risen indeed.”We say those words a lot in our church—on Easte...  Read More

From my perspective as a pastor, one of the most important things we did this past Sunday happened right at the beginning of the service:“Christ is risen.”“He is risen indeed.”We usually reserve that ...  Read More

On Super Bowl Sunday, I stood up to preach in the same shirt I’d worn two weeks earlier.That wasn’t the plan.In fact, very little in the last few weeks has gone “according to plan.”Our church lost a d...  Read More

Good morning, dear friends,As I stood before you this past Sunday, I was struck once again by the beauty and depth of God's Word. Our journey through the Gospel of Matthew brought us face-to-face with...  Read More