This morning we went to Mount Rushmore. It is the 4th time for me and and 3rd for Yvonne.  Of course the mountain hasn’t changed  but the park itself has changed considerably.  I don’t know who privatized it (probably Mr. Bush) but it is now in the hands of a for profit company and it shows.  The parking is now $10 and the dining room which used to be a fantastic view has now been cut up into several different areas and poorly run in my opinion.  The cashier was totally confused on how to charge us since we did … Continue reading Trip Log – In to Billings Montana

            We spent this morning in Pierre SD which is the capital.  Those pictures will soon appear on the http://www.CelebratingMainstreets.orgsite along with some of the other state capitals.  After the capital we went to the South Dakota Cultural Center. They had a very balanced presentation of the State’s history. Since I am 1/8 native American I focused mainly on the Lakota Sioux history. They told several stories about how the buffalo were so essential to their way of life and when the white man came and destroyed them in a matter of a few years it … Continue reading Trip Log – South Dakota still?

                                Today we spent the morning and early afternoon in Mitchell S.D.  Of course when you think of Mitchell you must think of the Corn Palace.  The first time I was there was at about the age of 8 years.  It seemed much bigger then. Yes, it is covered with corn and redone every years.  This tradition started in 1892. This one is the third building on the site. The first was in 1892 and the second was in 1905 and this one was built in … Continue reading Trip Log – The Corn Palace and …

In many church calendars last Sunday was Pentecost Sunday. That was a very dramatic event in early church history. Acts describes it as this: Acts 2:1-12 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled … Continue reading Pentecost – What was it all about?

We spent today traveling through the Nebraska countryside between Lincoln and Mitchell South Dakota. With an InTheSlowLane attitude we decided to take the local roads and got underway about 9AM.  About an hour into the drive we were stopped by a “road construction” crew. We sat for about 20 minutes while a road sweeping machine about 1/4 mile away proceeded to clean some dirt off the road. I’m not sure what the dirt was from but it didn’t really seem that bad. We continued to watch as he made trip after trip up and down the road. I guess I … Continue reading Trip Log – Nebraska Countryside

Compared to yesterday, today was very peaceful and we did not spend the majority of it on the highway. We spent the day in Ohama and then settled down in a hotel in Lincoln at 4PM! But we will venture out later to take some pictures and tour the State Capital area. Ohama Nebraska literally knocked my socks off! I was really not expecting much when we got into the city. But now it is in my top 5 of best cities we have visited. Although it is a large city (over 400,000) it has a very attractive small town flavor. It … Continue reading Trip Log – Omaha Nebraska

Here I am at 6AM and up as usual. Yesterday was day one of our western trip. We spent most of the day in the car. We intented to stop at Des Moine but ended up about 200 miles further in Omaha Nebraska. How we got here was kind of comical but didn’t seem so at the time!  Getting to Des Moine was rather uneventful. We saw acre after acre of freshly planted corn in central Illinois and Iowa. We spent most of the day on the Interstate highway as we were trying to get outside of our “home ground”. … Continue reading Trip Log – Miles & Miles

Did Jesus mean for everyone to know of the Kingdom of God? Luke 8:10 “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, “‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’ Luke 9:26-27 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not … Continue reading The Kingdom of God Study 5

Here is the verse we will use for this discussion: Luke 17:20-21 “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.” Jesus clearly says that the kingdom is not a place that you can observe or see but that it is within you. This has some serious ramifications. The Lord’s Prayer talks about the kingdom of God in Heaven and on earth. Is the kingdom of God in Heaven a particular place that we go to when we die? … Continue reading Kingdom of God Study 4

Who gets into the Kingdom of God? Everyone wants to see the kingdom of God but Jesus points to some qualification on getting there. Let’s look at those verses: Luke 6:20 Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Mark 10:14-16 “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”  Mark 10:24-25 “Children, how hard it is to enter the … Continue reading The Kingdom of God Study 3

 Something has been on my mind for the last few day so I am going to interrupt my study of the Kingdom of God for a quick non-related post. What does it take to get individual congregations to cross denominational boundaries for the common good? Jesus told us to be one as He and the Father are one. But it seems that that is an almost impossible task in today’s Christian world. Years ago when I was a Catholic I was told that I could go to another church as long as I “sat on my hands”. That is to … Continue reading Crossing Denominational Boundaries

What is the Kingdom of God?  Let’s look at a few places where Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God and what it might be: Luke 4:43-44 “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”    Mark 4:30-32 “What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden … Continue reading The Kingdom of God Study 2

Jesus spoke about the kingdom of God more frequently than any other topic, and it pervades all his actions as well. He mentioned the kingdom of God more than 70 times in the Gospel texts and it is mentioned by his disciples more than 30 times. Since I haven’t done so yet I thought I would spend the next several posts trying to discover just what is the “kingdom of God”? I will do that primarily through studying the red letters. Let’s start out with this post covering some of the higher levels of this topic and then in the … Continue reading The Kingdom of God Study 1

I have been volunteering at a cafeteria/soup kitchen in a Christian homeless shelter for over four years now. This was part of my progression from a hectic life to the slow lane. It was doing dishes and helping to fix the meals that I learned one of the places the Lord truly intended me to be. Over these years I have progressed to doing solo days when needed. Sandy, the full time cook at the mission had some surgery yesterday and will be off for a week or more. My prayers and many others are with her for a full … Continue reading Opportunities to share the Lord’s Love in our lives

I saw the title quote for this post form a story about Wintley Phipps who is a very popular singer/pastor. As soon as I heard it I was struck to the heart. If you really think about the words in the hymn “Amazing Grace” you come to the realization that the hymn is about reaching past our arrogance and past our pride and into the true nature of God. I have to tell you about a very personal incident in my life. It was during the singing of this hymn that I truly felt the presence of the Holy Spirit … Continue reading Amazing Grace – Reaching Past Ourselves

These next couple of posts are very personal in nature. I will be revealing some of my soul in them. Please bear with me or if you want just skip over them.  I talk a lot about how we shape our futures by the God given free will choices we make. But, it was also very important for me to understand that God has a dream for how my life should run its course. If I were to totally give in to God’s will His dream would certainly be accomplished and I would be a much better person. Of course … Continue reading God has a dream for my life

Here is a quote from a book by Gregory A Boyd that is the basis for this post: The heart of Jesus’ teaching was “the kingdom of God”. He spoke about that topic more frequently than any other, and it pervades all his actions as well. Indeed, the Gospels make it clear that Jesus was the embodiment – the incarnation – of the kingdom of God. When Jesus was present, so was that kingdom (Matt 12:28 and Matt 3:2 & 4:17). Though the world as a whole was and remains part of the domain in which Satan is king, in … Continue reading The Kingdom of God vs. the Kingdoms of the World

I can’t find it right now but I do remember the verse about “to whom much is given, much is expected. I don’t think Jesus was against a person being worldly rich although he did tell that one rich man to sell everything :) . What he is against is people who obsess on money. These days we discover that seems to be many in the corporate world especially CEOs. How can anyone think they are worth what many of the CEOs make today. Especially when the company they run is going down the drain.  Most make more in one … Continue reading A Moral Disconnect

Matt 25:35-40 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did … Continue reading Who are the “Least of These”?

I have read a book entitled “101 Ways to Reach Your Community” by Steve Sjogren who is the founding pastor of Vineyard Community Church in Cincinnati. (A full review will come later.) He is a graduate of Lutheran Bible Institute and is the founding pastor of that non-denominational mega-church. In that book there are some very unique ways to draw the community to your church.  He also wrote another book called “Irresistible Evangelism”. Both books are worth the read.  He grew his church to more than 6,000 and he kept Jesus front and center in his ministry the whole way. It … Continue reading Some Personal Views on Outreach – Multipronged Outreach

One of the many conflicts in churches today is whether to offer a “contemporary” service. There as very strong advocates on both sides of this issue. But even if a church decides to take the contemporary themed service off the table there are still many other outreach tools that can be used.  Let’s not limit ourselves to just the old arguments against doing something.  Let’s investigate how other churches have been successful with other methods. Let’s not take everything off the table just because some of it is tainted. Personally I don’t think the Lord would mind if we used … Continue reading Some Personal Views on Outreach – Contemporary Services

This is the last post of the review of Reggie McNeal’s book the “Present Future”. This time we will look at the last reality. The Rise of Apostolic Leadership. This last area obviously has to do with how we go about the paradigm shift in church leadership to accomplish making disciples rather than doing “church”. Again Mr. McNeal is rather blunt in his assessment. Let’s start out with another quote from the book:  Many church leadership groups apparently have not grasped the insight that each new generation now is a distinct culture and requires different leadership approaches. Most have never … Continue reading The Rise of Apostolic Leadership.

 Continuing on with my review of Reggie McNeal’s book “The Present Future” we will now look at his 2nd reality. The shift from church growth to kingdom growth. In this section Mr. McNeal is trying to tell us that we are more interested in doing “church” than we are of making disciples. Here is a meaningful quote: The North American church culture is not spiritual enough to reach our culture. In our self-absorption we don’t even see the people we are supposed to be on mission to reach.   In my words this means we are too busy preaching to the … Continue reading The Shift from Church Growth to Kindgom Growth

 I want to close out this outreach series with a review of a book by Reggie McNeal called “The Present Future – Six Tough Questions for the Church”. Actually, the book should be entitled “Six Realities that need to be overcome”. Mr. McNeal is the director of leadership development for the South Carolina Baptist Convention. I want to up front admit that this is not a comfortable book to read if you are a North American practicing Christian. So I guess it is appropriate that my review of it comes out an uncomfortable day (Tax Day). I think Mr. McNeal’s … Continue reading The Present Future

I recently received a desperate plea from the Salvation Army to contribute to them. I liked the quote from William Booth, the founder: You cannot warm the hearts of people with God’s love if they have an empty stomach or cold feet I find it embarrassing to admit that Christian giving trails off during hard economic times. I understand a family’s need may increase but organizations like the Salvation Army’s needs increase even more dramatically. In the financial world there is the mantra that you must keep contributing to your 401K even during market downturns and boy have we are … Continue reading Warming the hearts of people with God’s love

        Let’s spend this post contemplating how our actions, or inactions, made it necessary for Jesus Christ to go to the cross for our sins. It wasn’t just an act for “them”. It was for us. Continue reading He took on the sins of the world

At first glance this post might not seem like one on outreach but, in my mind, it really is. Like it or not our actions put a face on Christianity to the current crop of unbelievers.  There was a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor entitled “The Coming Evangelical Collapse” http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0310/p09s01-coop.html%3E . In it the author is described as: Michael Spencer is a writer and communicator living and working in a Christian community in Kentucky. He describes himself as “a postevangelical reformation Christian in search of a Jesus-shaped spirituality.” He lays out multiple reasons why Christians known as evangelicals … Continue reading The Coming Evangelical Collapse

 Continuing with my focus on Christian outreach, I want to give you an extended quote from Rick Richardson in his book “Evangelism – Outside the Box” I would highly recommend the book to anyone who is truly willing to look outside his personal or his churches box. Religious people tend to create programs and ministries that meet the needs of other religious people. Jesus knew that. He chose a different way. At the cost of his life, he chose to find the lost, to heal the sick, to cure the sinner. He wants his church to fulfill his ministry and … Continue reading Lost People matter to God.

Who are the unchurched and why aren’t they there? Here are some statistics about our mission field Group Born Attend Church Builders Born Before 1946 51% Boomers 1946 – 1964 41% Busters 1965 – 1976 34% Bridgers 1977 – 1994 29% Source: Surprising Insights from the Unchurched by Thom S. Rainer , Zondervan Press 2001    The growing ranks of the unchurched are not due to problems limited to certain geographical areas Over 80% of Americans say religious faith is very important to their lives and yet less than half go to church. Less than 30% of the New Homesteaders … Continue reading Why aren’t they here???

    Here it is April 1 and I am going to pull a cruel joke on you. I am going to spend the next few post talking about outreach. Yes, that is that thing that we Christians seem to be deathly afraid of. But, in my mind that is the primary task for us while we are on this earth. We have to constantly be fighting off treating our church as a country club. In other words as stated by William Temple “the church is the only society in the world that exists for its nonmembers.” I think he … Continue reading Country Club Christians?

Matt 6:24 “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Wow, it sounds like we have to choose between God and money! How can we do without money but then again how can we do without God! This seems like an impossible choice to make. The key word here is “serve”. When we serve God we are constantly seeking his will and living our lives as he taught us. If we serve money … Continue reading God & Money

Luke 4:16-21 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoner and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”  These were some of the first proclamations that Jesus made when he started his three year ministry. Isn’t it interesting that the first group he targets are the poor and those with disabilities. It is actions like these that make it hard for some of us to try and … Continue reading Opening His ministry

    Today I am going to talk a little about a book entitled “If God is Love – Rediscovering Grace in an Ungracious World” by Phillip Gulley and James Mulholland. I must admit up front that I am somewhat fascinated by the Quaker religion of which both of the authors are ministers. Although one of them came through Baptist and Methodists to get there. I greatly respect the position the Quakers have taken on non-violence going all the way back to the Revolutionary war. This is a very readable book on a very important topic. There has been an … Continue reading Book Review – If God is Love

As you can see from the last few posts I have been somewhat down the last few weeks. I have always found that reading Beatitudes is able to pull me up when I am down. I prefer Luke’s version to that Matthew’s. So, here goes: Luke 6:20-22 Looking at his disciples, he said: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.  Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name … Continue reading Lifting up Christian’s Spirits…

I am making a rare Saturday post to give attention to Trevin Wax’s blog posting for today. Go to http://trevinwax.com/2009/03/21/how-scholarship-shields-us-from-the-bible/ .  It gives credence to my belief that today’s Christians are generally not doing a very good job of understanding what Jesus says in the Gospels. It looks like this was also not uncommon a hundred years ago. Will we ever learn that Jesus really does expect us to actually do what he says. Thanks Trevin.  I will be picking up a book or two by Soren Kierkegaard. Continue reading Kingdom People Blog Post.

Here is another impromptu post related to a discussion I recently had with another Christian. First of all I am a regular supporter, both with my time and money, of a local Christian shelter and soup kitchen. During my discussions with my Christian friend I mentioned that the support of our church to this mission has almost dried up in the recent months. I have tried numerous way to spur support but to no avail. My friend made the statement that maybe we should not ask people to support things like this during these tough times. My friend said many … Continue reading Fair Weather Christians

I imagine everyone has heard the term “you reap what you sow”. There is a lot of reaping and sowing going on in the Bible but I have not been able to find this reference in any of them. Are some of the bad things that happen in our lives a result of our unchristian behavior? Some of the red letters around this theme are:  John 9:2-5 His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” “Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the work … Continue reading Do we reap what we sow??

 I don’t know how many of you have read President Obama’s talk at the National Prayer Breakfast a few weeks ago. In that talk he told us how he came to faith in spite of not being raised in the active Christian household. And , no he was never a Muslim. Yes, his estranged father was at one time a Muslim before he became an atheist. Here is his account of why he came to accept Jesus as his Lord and Savior.  I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I had a father who was born a Muslim … Continue reading Coming to Faith -Presidential Style

Since I have been doing book reviews for a while I wanted to break it up with something I have been pondering lately. Is there such a thing as a “couch potato Christians”? Of course there are, so maybe I should say “should there be such a thing? A verse from Ephesians is used frequently by many denominations to show us our salvation is a total gift and has nothing to do with what we do. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God not … Continue reading Couch Potato Christians???

                This is a follow up of a recent post about eliminating hunger in the world. I’m sure there are some, and probably many, Christian organizations who say “No, no, we must spend our money preaching the Word and not ministering to physical needs. After all our spiritual life is for eternity and hunger is only of this earth”. While I don’t totally disagree with the intent of this, I believe it is very wrong headed and off the mark. There are well known basic human needs that must be met before higher … Continue reading Basic Human Needs

 For those of us who grew up with MAD magazine the title of this posting is very familiar. Alfred E. Neuman the main character in the magazine was constantly captioned to say that. I know I am giving my age away with this knowledge since Mad magazine was published in the 1950’s and that was ages ago for many bloggers. I regularly spent my 35 cent weekly allowance for a copy of Mad Magazine! If you are interested in learning more about Alfred go to Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_e_newman  Little did I know then that there was a biblical basis for … Continue reading What me worry??

It’s time to get back on to the red letters so here goes: Luke 12:48 From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. There are hard words for us in the first world countries, especially us in the United States. Some say these words only refer to spiritual matters but I don’t buy that at all! We spend more on our Starbucks coffee in a year than most third world people earn. How can so many of us ignore the needs in … Continue reading How fortunate we are!

This is a continuation of the last post where I covered George Washington’s religious beliefs. I will conclude this topic by talking about Thomas Jefferson.  Thomas Jefferson — Jefferson was undoubtedly the strongest advocate for religious freedom of the Founding Fathers. This was quite evident when he composed the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom in 1777. Jefferson was definitely raised in a Christian household. He seemed to have also been brought up in the rituals and customs of the Anglican Church as it existed in colonial Virginia which was much less a high church institution than its England counterpart. He … Continue reading The Faith of our Founding Fathers – continued

       There are a lot of different views of what the Founding Fathers of the United States believed when it came to God. Many evangelicals like to say that we were founded on Christian principles and that is what makes us so unique, some would say superior, but I definitely don’t buy into that. I found the book entitled The Faiths of Our Fathers, by Alf J. Mapp Jr. to be very helpful in discerning truth from myth about this topic. The book goes into quite some detail about 10 of the most prominent Founders and just what … Continue reading The Faiths of our Founding Fathers