Church

"Jesus told them, 'The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.'" -- Luke 10:2 I've been in full-time, vocational ministry for over twenty years.  I have lived on the left coast, in the South, and now at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.  I have visited New England and spent several vacations in Seattle.  I've dipped my toe into Canada as well as Mexico and, most recently, Nepal. In every place, I've discovered the same thing: the problem is not with the harvest.  In other words, there is no lack of people who have been separated from God.  All around, there are plenty of people trying to discover (or rediscover) greater meaning in life.  Guilt and shame are not bound by boundaries.  The need for forgiveness transcends political parties, skin color, and accents. The…

Good poetry does more than just state facts.  Instead, it paints pictures, evokes feelings, and heightens our awareness of our surroundings.  A good poet is like a symphony conductor, drawing from multiples sources to create beautiful music. The last poem of David contained in the book of Psalm is like that.  In Psalm 145, David throws image after image at us, or as Lloyd Oglivie says, "An overload of synonyms." This weekend we will be exploring David's description of the love of God -- what a topic!  The rich, full, abounding love of God. The amazing part is ... it's not just reserved for stars and mountains.  The love of God is directed at his crowning creation: you and me.  It was St. Augustine who said, "God loves each of us as if there were only one of us." Read that again.

We can be easily seduced by tools and techniques. Infomercials promise every tool imaginable to make our lives easier and more efficient. Salsa makers, grout cleaners, and the best table saw, you name it. As if the promise of a better life wasn't enough incentive, you can double your order by just paying extra shipping and handling! We also love our techniques. We look for the magic formula (technique) to reduce stress, lose weight, and double our income -- all at the same time in just fifteen minutes a day. Is it any wonder we are also so easily disappointed? We are choosing to lean on a stick when God offers his own faithfulness: "The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does. The Lord upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down. The eyes of all look to you, and…

King David of Old Testament fame was a complex man.  King and shepherd, warrior and poet.  He could lead an army and an orchestra.  At one point, he is referred to as a "man after God's own heart."  In the same Bible, the story is told of his adultery and how he plotted the murder of a faithful soldier (who happened to be his mistress' husband). The immediate fallout of David's adultery seems minimal.  His plan works, his mistress becomes his wife, and life returns to normal for the King. That is, until the prophet Nathan shows up and takes the King for a walk.  Along the way, Nathan tells King David a parable about a rich man oppressing a poor man -- steals his sheep, for heaven's sake!  Only David doesn't know it's a parable.  His anger flares and he demands that the rich man be held accountable, punished…

Google has changed everything.  My coffee tastes different, the jet stream flows in a different direction.  Everything has changed because information is at our fingertips.  We can search for (and find) coffee shops that only serve organic, fair-trade coffee, gluten-free muffins, and soy milk for the lactose intolerant.  Not only will Google help you find it, it will help you get there as well. But Google was not the first search engine. Before Google, I used search engines called Webcrawler, Lycos, or AltaVista.  You just earned an extra star at Starbucks if you used one of those, too. The first search engines simply "crawled" the internet, indexing sites by keywords and titles.  When you searched for a term, the search engine returned a list of matching sites.  It was a basic form of search and the list may or may not have contained relevant sites. Google changed everything.  Using algorithims,…