Don’t wait another day.

Start today.

Start even though December is not entirely over.

Start even if you are 53 years old.

Start even if it is late in the day.

Just start.

Every year, as I approach the final day on the calendar, I like to take the time to plan and dream about the coming year. First, I will sit down and review the past twelve months. Did I complete the dreams I had over that time? Next, I come up with goals for the year ahead that are realistic and practical.

This coming year, I will …

1. Reread the entire Bible. This year, I am doing it with two groups in my Church. The first group consists of people who read it with me last year, and now they can ask any questions. The second is a bunch of newbies who will read and share their favorite verses. I am excited about another journey through the word of God.
2. Personally Disciple 3-4 people. Last year, I met with two individuals alone and then with a group of three other people together. We went through a book called “The Disciple’s Journey.” I hope to repeat that this year as I attempt to develop other people for Jesus.
3. More Outreach. I hope to connect with more people so that I can share Jesus’ message. I want to lead our Church to reach more new people than ever before.
4. Establish Better Boundaries. I am a workaholic. I need to take my vacation this year. I need to have more set times off. I need to not take my work home with me. I need to find separation in my life from being a pastor to being a husband and father.

These are a few of the things I would like to achieve this next year emotionally and spiritually. What goals do you have? What dreams might you be able to achieve? How is God leading you toward growth in the coming year?

Now is the time to make plans for next year.

Johnson Oatman Jr. was raised in a family where his father was a singer. He wanted to sing with him, but after trying, became convinced he had no talent. Johnson then set his sights on being a preacher. At the age of 36, he realized he could share the message of Jesus by writing hymns for people to enjoy and sing.

It is reported that over the rest of his life, he penned more than 5,000 songs. A few of them became popular, but none more than the song he wrote in 1897. It was an immediate success and drew attention to all his previous work.

In the Church I grew up in, the song was referred to as “When Upon Life’s Billows.” The name most people know it by is “Count Your Blessings.” It is an uplifting song about looking on the bright side of life.

The day after Christmas is undoubtedly the appropriate time to count your blessings. Many of us have spent time with family and friends, we have received and given gifts, and we have eaten some of the best-tasting food of the year. Today is a good day to sit down and thank God for all the blessings in your life. I think if you do that, you will rediscover that no matter what the rest of this year looks like, you are truly blessed beyond measure.

My social media feed this year is full of people debating back and forth about whether Christians should celebrate Christmas. The arguments run along a couple of tracks. First, the Bible never instructs us to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Two, the day we chose to celebrate it appears to have pagan origins. Thus, if you were a true believer, then you would reject this pagan holiday and act like nothing is happening this time of year.

My response to this comes from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the believers in the city of Rome. After all the theological teachings in the first eleven chapters, he gives very practical information about life for believers. Part of his instruction focuses on special days and food sacrificed to idols. There, he writes, “One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. (6) Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. (Romans 14:5-6)”

Paul gives Christians a simple rule to live by, “Do everything for the Lord.” This will be spelled out in several ways in the verses that follow, but for this post, I want to focus on these words alone. If you set aside a day as special, do it for the glory of God. If you don’t celebrate a day as special, do it for the glory of God. Neither position is more spiritual nor defines a true believer.

This week is Christmas, and I will be celebrating the arrival of Jesus and the work he came to do. I don’t care about pagan backgrounds or traditions. I care solely about Jesus as Immanuel. I am convinced in my own mind that this day is special for the Lord. And as long as he gets the glory, that is a victory for all believers.

Merry Christmas to you.

This past Sunday at Church, we had an incident. After a rain, our gravel parking lot turned to mud in several places. People walked through it on their way into the building, and quickly, our carpet, which was only three weeks old, was covered in mud.

I decided to let it dry and come back and vacuum it later. After a series of people going over it with the vacuum, I brought in my cleaner. Now, I have to give you the backstory of this cleaner I own.

Five years ago, my boys decided they wanted to go Black Friday shopping. The central place they wanted to go was Nebraska Furniture Mart. They got there early, waited in line, and ran to grab some of the cheap items for sale. They were not very successful at grabbing the best stuff, but they came home with a few purchases.

My wife went with them, and she grabbed a box that she thought was a vacuum for $40. When she got home, we opened it to discover a carpet cleaner. After a discussion about the price, we decided to keep it. The cleaner then took up residence in our hall closet, and was barely used. It remains looking brand new.

When I saw the Church carpet was a mess, I immediately thought, “I have something to clean that.” Monday morning, I arrived early and spent about two hours making the carpet look like new again. While I was filling the tank and emptying the dirty water, I began to wonder if this was all a tiny little part of God’s providence. Years before I had a mess, he had given me a way to handle it.

I am not convinced that God cares about every little detail like that, but I know the principle is still valid. God is working in our lives long before we need him. He is preparing us for whatever comes our way and giving us the grace we need to make it through every muddy season before we see the first dirty tracks.

These things are not the same:

Bible study compared to watching a few TikTok videos about Bible-related things.

Sharing what you believe about Jesus (aka Evangelism) compared to posting Christian stuff on social media.

A conversation with your full, undivided attention compared to a text message.

Doing meaningful ministry compared to offering criticism of a Church program you attended.

Giving sacrificially compared to throwing some change in the Salvation Army kettle.

Discipleship as transformation to be like Jesus compared to attending a twelve-week class.

One thing that is vital in our culture is defining our terms. Quite often, I say things and mean them one way. The people listening hear what I say and define it differently. Calling things by Bible names and having Biblical definitions is indispensable to the unity of the Church.

At first, this sounds like an exciting proposition, but the longer you call yourself a believer, the more difficult it is to agree.

People love the concept of coming to Church, accepting Jesus as their Savior, and serving alongside other followers of Jesus. We are all sinners saved by the same grace.

Then, the years start to roll past. Without any fanfare, we find ourselves accumulating experiences and understanding the longer we are a believer. Our knowledge grows of all things religious. Suddenly, someone new walks in, and it is hard to accept them as equal to me. After all, they do not have the wisdom that comes with years of being a Christian.

If we are not careful, we can develop an air of superiority when it comes to faith. We feel like we have seniority, and our thoughts and opinions are more valuable than those of new believers. We deserve special treatment and added respect because of our superior faith.

It is true that I rarely find people who say it that directly, but the attitude persists. I hear it when people demand the types of music or songs that they prefer. I see it when people start to claim seats in the auditorium. This mindset of “I have been here longer, so I deserve special treatment” can grow with every year you are a Church member. You might think it is justified in your case, but so did the Pharisees.

This is post number 3,000 since I started this blog.

I started writing a blog in the early 2000s, and due to several events in my life, after about five years, I decided to quit. Eventually, I deleted all the posts and thought that I would never write again. After four years of silence, I decided to chronicle my journey as a pastor in Alaska.

At first, I hoped to explain what it is like to be a preacher at a small Church on the last frontier. At the same time, I was a man who had walked through personal struggles and failures, and God had given me a second chance. So, I decided to wed the two together and make a new blog. I was never seeking readers but rather a way to record my experiences and lessons I was learning so that I would not forget them.

In 2014, I moved back to the “lower 48” and started a new ministry, and I kept writing. Many of my early posts were poorly worded, filled with grammatical errors, and contained links to other people’s work. During this time, I discovered how much I loved to write through trial and error. I was able to keep an online journal of my ministry, ideas, and experiences while doing it in a way that I enjoyed.

A few years ago, I committed to writing five days a week without pausing. Building a platform and self-promotion is not my purpose. With that said, I do find joy in the fact that my writing has blessed others. My stats say that in the last twelve years it has taken to write these posts, there have been a little less than 40,000 visitors who have come to read. It is tough to calculate how many posts have been read, as some people will stop once every week or two and read several posts simultaneously. Ultimately, none of that matters to me. I am just happy to write, and more than one time, I have gone back to read old posts with delight.

Today is post 3,000, and I have no plans to stop. As with all ministry endeavors, God can do something that will cause me to change directions at a moment’s notice. Until the day that it is clear to me that I need to stop writing, I will keep doing it. And I want to thank all of you for reading. I appreciate all of you, and all praise to Jesus.

What a physical trainer does for the body is what the pastor is trying to do for the soul. They both want people to achieve a life that is the way God designed it. One seeks physical health and happiness, and the other seeks spiritual health and happiness.

The trainer and the pastor watch with great excitement when people attend either the gym or the Church regularly. They both desire people to change their habits, get rid of the things that are destroying them, and work hard to achieve the desired results. When people do all that is asked of them, there is great joy in the trainer and the pastor as they see lives shaped for the better.

Both people also struggle with a great deal of disappointment. They have to sit back and watch people ignore their instruction, continue to embrace bad habits in their absence, and never gain a better life. It is painful to see people with so much potential waste it on junk food and junky living.

This time of year, people are making a mess of themselves both physically and spiritually. Come January, they will vow to make changes. People will join gyms, get personal trainers, and make resolutions. They will go to Church, get a Bible reading plan, and commit to developing a quiet time with God.

I hope that neither of them will be disappointed in you come February.

Every Sunday morning, when I speak to the Church, I have wonderful people who display all the scriptures I use on the screen. For a few years, I simply printed the words on a paper outline that I took to the podium to preach. That way, I could talk seamlessly throughout my sermon. My outline was there, all the Bible passages were there, and I could speak without pausing to flip pages.

Then, about five years ago, I made a drastic change. I stopped carrying an outline up on the stage with me and started taking only my Bible. In fact, most weeks, it sits on a little table in front of the congregation throughout the whole program. Then, throughout my sermon, I will stop and flip to each of the passages and read directly from my Bible.

I orchestrated this change for a few reasons. First, I wanted people to differentiate between when I am speaking my interpretations and when I am preaching the Bible. In a culture of Biblical illiteracy, I realized that most people had no idea when I was using God’s word and when I was using my own.

Second, I wanted people to see the high value we put on the Bible above all else. My words are fading noise, but the word of the Lord stands forever. I want people to see their preacher picking up a Bible, holding it, reading from it, and then explaining what it says.

Finally, my desire is to encourage people to take a paper Bible that we provide for free and go home and read it themselves. Audio versions and digital Bibles have their place in the life of a believer. But there is also a role for paper pages where you can highlight, write, and make notes on the side. The printed page is not holier than its modern counterparts, but it does enable us to have a more tactile relationship with it.

In most settings where I speak nowadays, I carry a Bible with a few notes scribbled on the side, and I use that alone to preach. My hope is that when I am all done, people will value the scriptures far more than anything I have said.