I believe there is one essential question that all believers must continually ask themselves. This one questions defines my actions and helps me to grow in my faith.

Here it is, “What is my next step on my journey of faith?”

Faith is about believing a core set of doctrines but it is not limited to head knowledge. Faith is about knowing the right things and then doing them. Too often these actions get moved to a theoretical someday. We will do this when we know the Bible more. We will do that when we have more time. As a result we tread the waters of a stagnant faith for years and years.

My hope is that you refocus your vision onto the step that is right in front of you. What step, either big or small, can you take that will stretch you and make you more obedient.

What does God desire from you? That is very personal. Where are you on your journey with God? Have you believed? Have you publicly proclaimed it? Have you been baptized? Have you tried to remove that sin from your life? Are you serving? Are you giving? Are you connecting? Are you growing? Where are you and what is your next step?

Faith is a journey that takes a lifetime. The only really important step is the one you are taking today. What step do you need to take on your journey of faith?

It is not one of my favorite worship songs. In fact, almost two years ago I wrote down a few lines in my Evernote notebook about a blog I wanted to write about it. I have read through my scattered lines over and over and have yet to craft it into a full-blown blog until today. The sad thing for me is that I have completely flip-flopped on my view of this song.

The song is a Christian praise song entitled “Oceans.” The opening lines are:

“You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail”

As a person of deep convictions about my faith I had intended to write about how God reveals the unknown to us when we follow him. Faith is a journey of following Jesus. He guides us through his words, his Holy Spirit and through his people.

I still believe those simple truths. My problem is that I stand with a lot of unknown territory before me right now. My oldest son is leaving home in two months for college and I am not sure of my role in his life. Then there is my father. His health continues to fail and I am not sure how to help him. He is clearly on the last leg of his race on earth and I do not know what to do. Finally, there is my Church. We have been trying to hire a children’s ministry with no success. We also need to hire a new secretary. This is the first week of ministry all alone with no other paid staff. I am hopeful for the future but I have no real control over any of the possibilities. For me, right now, life is full of the unknown.

The hard part is the overwhelming feeling that “my feet may fail.” I may make wrong choices. I may miss opportunities. I may not handle everything the way I should.

So what do you do when your journey leads out into unknown territory? Here is what I am doing.

1. Hold Onto the Promises of God – Hold onto the truth revealed in God’s word. God has promised us to never leave us forsake us.

2. Remember God’s Previous Work – I have seen God work in people’s lives during difficult times. I have seen his hand of mercy and guidance. I know he will do for me what he has always done for others.

3. Pray For Guidance – I ask God to lead me into my unknown future every day.

4. Ask for Support – Ask other people to pray. Ask other people for help.

5. Look For Open Doors – I firmly believe at one point God will show me the next steps. It may not be as quick as I would like, but guidance will come.

Oceans is still not my favorite worship song. I do think I understand it better. There are times in life the God leads us into the unknown. It might be a struggle. It might be hard. But keep your eyes on God and he will lead you through.

I am always keeping notes of the things God is teaching me. This is true whether I am in my office or on vacation. Here are a few of the notes I took the last week.

1. America is a Global Country. On our trip it seemed that everywhere we stopped we were surrounded by people of different races, cultures and beliefs. At our stop in the Wisconsin Dells I heard at least 4 different languages at the pool. One family we met would alternate between English and Spanish with every other sentence. The Church is told to “go into all the world” and we still have a huge need for overseas missionaries. We also need to understand that the world has come into our backyard and we can either ignore it or engage it.

2. The Value of Family. It didn’t matter who we met or where we went, almost everyone was on vacation with their children. Obviously that is connected to the places we visited too. If you go to a place for children then mostly children will be there. But I was interested in how most people, including my family, were out to give their children a good time. Children drive our country in many ways, how are Christians supposed to respond in our own lives and in our Churches?

3. The Packers Dream and the Future Church. We took a tour at Lambeau field and one of the stories caught my attention. Several years ago the Packers were about to fold when a new executive director had a dream. He realized they were only using their facility about 10-12 weeks a year. They held a couple preseason games, 8 regular season games and a playoff game or two. Most of the time the buildings were empty. They decided to change plans and make the facility a 363 day a year facility (closed on Christmas and Easter). They started hosting weddings and banquets, added a Hall of Fame and a Pro Shop, and they are currently building an adjoining park with a lake and trails. The team went from the last in revenue in the 1980’s to the 9th in revenue last year. While I heard this story I kept thinking about the Church. We get a little more use in our building, maybe 110 times a year. What if the Church became a 353 day facility? I am not interested in the revenue, but what about the impact for eternity?

4. The Value of Updating. Two nights in a row my family stayed in different hotels. One night it was a hotel that must have been built in the late 70’s or early 80’s. They had done nothing to the hotel since it was built. It was run down, dirty and empty. The next hotel looked to have been built near the same time and it had recently been completely remodeled. The place had nice new carpet, a great bathroom, a clean look and it was full. I was reminded that in the Church we can either grow old and lose people or grow old and connect with people. The difference might be in how much we are willing to change.

These were some of the big things I noticed while out on the road. What are you noticing this year?

My family and I just returned from our Road Trip 2016. We spent about 24 hours of actual drive time going from Adrian Missouri to Green Bay Wisconsin then the Wisconsin Dells and finally to the Mall of America. We stayed in 5 hotels and lived out of our suitcases for 7 full days.

This trip was one of the many trips I have made with my family through the years. We have traveled to Florida twice, Lake Erie, Alaska and back again, to Anchorage while in Alaska, to our parents repeatedly, and occasionally a one to three hour trip to anywhere we could drive.

This trip was a little bitter-sweet. My oldest son just graduated high school and this might be our last road trip together as a whole family. There is a good chance he will return home next summer and we might be able to do it one more time, but I am not getting my hopes up.

For us the family vehicle has been more important than the family dinner table. Many studies show the value of a family sitting down to share a meal and having quality conversation. We have enjoyed those times but the family vehicle has been far more important. We have traveled together and have seen the country together. We have seen the sights and shared the experiences. We have eaten all kinds of wonderful food at hundreds of restaurants. Our trips have been our time together as a family.

My simple thought for today is to find a family time for yourself. Find something you enjoy with your family and spend time doing it together. Maybe it’s traveling, maybe it’s eating, maybe it’s sports or maybe it is one of a thousand other activities.

Resist the urge to have him do his thing, her do her thing, and the kids do something else. Great families are not forged in the separate time of the individual. Rather they are the result of enjoying the blessings of God together.

Here are a few of my favorite Christian songs as of late. You may or may not have heard them. You will not like all of them unless you are exactly like me (and I doubt that). The first four are more worship style songs and the last three are more rap/hip-hop style music that my children like. I hope you enjoy some of them.

“Fierce” by Jesus Culture (Featuring Chris Quilala)

“O Praise the Name (Anastasis)” by Hillsong Worship

“No Other Name” by Hillsong Worship

“God and God Alone” by Passion (feat. Chris Tomlin)

“Oh Lord” by NF – This is a slower Christian rap that I really like.

“Mansion” by NF (featuring Fleurie) – Another rap song I like

“Start Over” by Flame (featuring NF)

One of my sons has a shirt that says this single line, “Don’t believe me just watch.” I assume the shirt was trying cash in on the popularity of a song called “Uptown Funk.” If you have not heard the song, that’s okay, it is not a very good song. The song was created by Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars and is more of dance tune than powerful ballad. But there is that one line, “Don’t believe me just watch.”

I have thought that I Christians should all be given a shirt with this one line on it. “Don’t believe me, just watch.” You don’t believe in Jesus? You don’t believe he can give you peace? You don’t believe he answers prayers? You don’t believe he helps you handle life’s toughest questions. You don’t believe me? Well, just sit back and watch.

Watch me live out my faith. Watch my life being lived differently than non-believers. Watch me have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control. Watch the difference Jesus has made in my life.

You don’t believe me about Jesus, well just watch and learn.

Sometimes I like to pull back the curtain on my life and job and let people know a little bit more about me. Recently I was thinking about how there are some Sunday’s I find it hard to preach. Please let me explain:

1. When I am not prepared enough – Some weeks are just busy. There are Church functions, holidays, special events and numerous other things that allow me less time to prepare. As a result on Sunday I know that I could have done more.

2. When I am tired – Believe it or not, preachers get tired. It might have been a long week or just a short Saturday night. Some weeks are just full of activity and I get little sleep. Then on weekends I usually try to get to bed by 9:00 pm on Saturday, but unfortunately there are a lot of events that do not honor my bed time. This leaves me out and busy sometimes until midnight. After a short night the brain doesn’t function as well on Sunday.

3. When it has been an emotional time – I have really noticed this lately with my son’s graduation and my parents in the hospital. It is hard to preach with a heavy heart. This is when I can really tell the emotional energy is not there.

4. When attendance is down – attendance is a weird thing for public speakers. If I expect 15 people to show up and 20 people are there then I am energized. When I expect 25 people there and only 20 show up then I struggle. It is not so much a numbers thing as it is a psychological thing.

5. When there are distractions – No one likes to talk about this because it will hurt someone’s feelings. But the truth remains the same, distractions are difficult to speak through. The phone going off, the baby crying, the people getting up and down, the guy snoring and a hundred other things can happen each week. When they do occur it is easy for me to lose my place and feel frustrated because the big point I was trying to make just got lost.

With all that said, I have written before about how God manages to take the times I found it hard to preach and still uses them. I am thankful that God does not just work when I feel good about my sermon. Usually He does his best work when I feel like things did not go that well.

Throughout my life I have heard a similar piece of repeated advice. “Find a job you love and it will never feel like work.” There are several variations on this statement but all of them imply that there are certain types of work that are always a joy. Maybe the deeper implication is that if your job is not full of joy then you should find something else to do.

Well, I am here to say that I really like my job. What I do usually brings me joy and a sense of fulfillment. I mean I get to work for God through the Church. BUT – Even I have days when I don’t want to work. There are days I don’t want to go to the office and read more. I get tired of using my brain and just want to sit quietly and watch TV. There are days I want to skip Church. Sometimes I even get weary from preaching and teaching. Honestly, there are days I do not enjoy doing my job.

I am often reminded of the boy scout who asked another pack member, “Do you ever have days when you feel just a little untrustworthy, disloyal, unhelpful, unfriendly, discourteous, unkind, grumpy, wasteful, cowardly, dirty, and irreverent?”

What do you do when you have days like that?

I will tell you what I do. I get up and go to work. I sit down with my Bible and I read. I open up the computer and I start typing. I get up and go to Church. I start preaching and see where it goes. I continue working even when it is not a joy.

I think that if we are honest, all of us have days when we don’t feel like doing the right thing. We all have days when serving feels like work. We all have days we want to just quit life and rejoin the human race later when we feel better.

The difference between people who make it work in life and those who fail is usually simple. To make it work, whatever it is – your job, your marriage, your parenting, your faith, anything – you have to just keep getting up and doing the right thing. Even when you don’t feel like it.

It is Memorial Day weekend. It is the unofficial start to summer. Most people be spending their weekend with family somewhere or off on some big outing. Since they are calling for rain here in Missouri I thought I would share a few good links for you to read if you get stuck inside. Enjoy

It’s Not ‘Cute’ When Dads Threaten My Son For Dating Their Daughter

Four Steps to Kill Nagging Sins

4 Things My Mom Taught Me About Theology

5 Secrets You Must Know About Your Wife

Is Cohabitation a Sin?

Say Hard Things

9 Reasons People Are Not Coming To Your Church

10 Qualities of the Leaders I Want on My Team

Finally – three short (but great) posts by business leader Seth Godin –

The short run and the long run

Calling your finding

The other kind of harm

I enjoy writing. I suppose that if I were no longer a preacher I would try in some way to be a writer. This blog is one outlet for that part of my life. Through the years I have thought of several books I would like to write for the people in the Churches I have served.

1. Busy With Nothing Important. Most people I have met are running from one thing to another all the time. They never take time to breathe. The sad part is that they are usually busy with nothing important. They are slaves to the immediate. Most of us need to focus our eyes on what really matters for eternity.

2. Imitate Christ Not Most Christians. Unfortunately the Church is full of people who talk about faith but do very little with it. People feel they are doing a good job if they are living like they people they see in Church. The sad result is that most people have incredibly shallow faith. Aim higher than most of the faith you see and try to become like Christ.

3. Find a Church and Spend the Rest of Your Life There. People move Churches far too often. I think one of the beauties of Church is that it gives you a place to work through your issues and become more Christlike. Unfortunately it takes a lifetime to achieve this goal. Church is the place you learn how to get along with others even when you are different. Church is where you can learn to forgive and grow in grace when others fail. Church is a place where you can develop deep relationships if you will stay long enough to move past superficial conversations. Church is a family that takes a lifetime to understand.

4. What You Are Really Searching For. I believe that most people are looking for some of the same basic elements of life. They want love, joy, hope and security. I am firmly convinced that these are what Jesus offers to us. Those outside of Christ are looking for what faith offers. Those inside of Christ who feel incomplete are probably doing something wrong.

5. It Takes a Big Dog to Weigh a Ton. Since I was a little boy I have asked my dad, “What do you know?” He has said for over 40 years, “It takes a big dog to weigh a ton.” If I follow-up that question with, “Don’t you know anything else?” He says, “Yes, it take a little dog to weigh an ounce.” Sadly, he is right. I would love to write a book about all the lessons my parents have taught me. There would be a collection of odd sayings and funny experiences. Mom and dad have taught me a lot about life and faith. Here is the funny thing, I am teaching my children some of the same lessons. I am saying some of the same things. We are first molded by our parents and then we spend our life molding our children. Be careful what shape you are forming.

These are just a few of the random ideas I have locked away. One day I will sit down and write and write. Books will flow out of me that I am sure very few people will read. Until that day, I will just keep typing my blog and sharing my ideas with the 25 of you who read this.