Pastor’s Blog

Dear friends, This week, Ted Goins and I will be robbing/extracting the honey of bee hives we’ve been nurturing for quite some time. Ted’s got a lot more history at this, so it’s been fun to learn from someone who knows the ropes. But I’ll be honest: it’ll be a lot more fun if this…

August brings a lot of change in our congregation. Joy Chaffin, our wonderful Office Manager, is retiring on Aug. 1. Joy has been on staff three years and brings a sense of calm to almost any situation. She’s always spinning fifty different plates in the air, but you would never know it. We send her…

When do you stop singing songs at the top of your lungs? Pastor Laura and I are at Lutheridge this week with 17 confirmation campers. It’s been a great week, no doubt, and a wonderful time to experience these students on a different playing field. On the way to lunch, I heard counselors leading their…

High school graduation is right around the corner, and we sure do have a great group of students to unleash! In youth ministry, we often ask the question: What does a student need in his/her backpack as they walk across the graduation stage? Lots of things, of course. Confidence, academic acumen, a sense of purpose/drive,…

Krista, Anna, Leo, and I ventured up north for Spring Break, stopping at some of the most historic cities in the country: Washington, DC, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Since Anna and Leo are both high school juniors, we also toured some colleges along the way, but the main item on the agenda was to reconnect with…

I enjoyed growing up in the 1980s. This funky little decade gave rise to some of the best (and cheesiest) music, the most iconic movie themes and images (think “ET, phone home”), styles that made you laugh (leg warmers? Parachute pants?), and moments in history that made you stand and shout (“Mr. Gorbachev, bring down…

Dear friends, Sometimes the truth is uncomfortable, but it sure is necessary when addressing some of the world’s critical issues. One such issue comes to mind: Palestine. The Israeli-Palestinian situation is a nightmare. Michelle Alexander wrote an alarming column in the NY Times earlier this week comparing the treatment of Palestinians to apartheid in South…