God Isn't

My wife Ellen enjoys selling things online. Sometimes she'll even get up on a Saturday morning in the summer and spend the morning hours going to garage sales.  As the saying goes, "One man's junk is another man's treasure!"

If you have been to many garage sales you know that "bartering" is a part of the process.  An item might be marked to be sold for just a dollar but still, someone wants to make that deal and g...

Pursuit of Happiness

As we are now fully engaged with another new year it always brings with it resolutions, goals, dreams and thoughts of what we would like to accomplish in the next 50 weeks of living here on earth.

One thing that nearly all of us think about is happiness and sometimes we'll do just about anything to find it! One person that was convinced that he knew how and where to find happiness was King Solomon. If anyone had the ways and the means to pursue happiness it wa...

Life is a Story

All of us would like to someday be able to sit down with our kids, our grandkids or some family members and tell our life story -- the whole story.  But what story will you choose to tell?  Will you be forced to stop mid-sentence and ask yourself "what version am I going to tell here?"  After all, it's your chance to tell "your story" about life and the mistakes that you made, the lessons that you learned and the truth about everyt...

Christmas is Near!

From his very birth, Jesus was recognized as a King.  There was just something about Him that inspired others to be loyal to him and to pay him respect. Wise men brought him gifts and shepherds fell to their knees worshipping him!  Another King, Herrod, realized that this baby Jesus was a threat to his throne so he tried to have him killed.

During his 3-year ministry, Jesus laid claim to the lives of ordinary people and their loyalty to him was total and...

Advent is Here!

It's hard to believe but we are officially kicking off the Advent season on Sunday, November 29th!  Advent in Latin means "Coming" and this is the time each year that we as Christians start to celebrate the 4 weeks prior to the birth of Christ Jesus and the Christmas holiday.

Advent reminds Christians of the sacred meaning of Christmas. Despite the secular preparations taking place, eg buying presents and going to parties, Advent reminds Christi...

Anger

Have you ever been accused of something that you didn't do? How did that make you feel? Later, when it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were innocent, did you still feel like others thought you were guilty?  Did the unproven and untrue accusation damage your reputation?

That kind of experience vividly shows us the dangerous power of a lie or a false accusation. Normally, when that lie or accusation is about us, the first thing we are tempted...

Coming in Glory

Jesus' first coming passed almost unnoticed: He was born in a very small, out of the way town and laid in a manger with only animals and shepherds to greet him.  Even at the peak of his ministry, Jesus could say "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Luke 9:58 NIV)

Learning from the Past

I've heard people ask the popular question, "Why should I bother reading the Old Testament?  Isn't that pretty much obsolete since Jesus came to earth and fulfilled profecy?"

The Old Testament is just as much God's Word as anything that you'll read in the New Testament.  In fact; God has a lot to teach us in ALL of the pages of the bible.  In 2 Timothy 3:16-17 we are told "All scripture is God-breathed and is u...

Listening to the Silence

I haven't updated my blog on here for awhile. Did anyone notice? It's not that I've been lazy or that I had nothing to say.  I was being still and trying to listen for God in the silence.

I've been struggling with working a fulltime job and then trying to find or sometimes - make the time for handling what i need to do as your Pastor.  I work fulltime as the Sales and Marketing Manager for an assisted living community in Findlay.

La...

Are You Running From The Lord?

When I was younger I played just about every sport there was. I enjoyed football, basketball and baseball and even hit the tennis ball around and later got hooked on golf.  I was active and running was a big part of my athletic years.

However; as I got older I lost the interest to run and be as active as I was in my younger days. Now, the only running you'll see me do is from the living room to the refrigerator during TV Timeouts to get something to eat o...

Why Does God Take The Good One's?

I had a friend ask me recently, "Why does God take the good ones?" in reference to the death of a very good friend who was not only a very good person but an excellent Christian.

This is a question that we have been asking for a very long time. It doesn’t seem “fair” that good people suffer illnesses and sometimes an early death while those that live for themselves & have no desire to know Christ appear to live lives to be jealous o...

From Shepherd to King

This weekend we will be discussing David who is one of the best known figures in the bible. He was chosen by God to lead his people and he was very much a follower of God!

Of course, we all know the story of David and Goliath and how the small teenage shepherd boy took down the larger-than-life Philistine giant. In fact; the bible calls David "a man after God's own heart and he chronicled much of the book of Psalms.

Because of his victory over Goliath, Davi...

We are COMMUNITY Bible Church

I love the idea of community.

We once had a discussion about the word "Community" at one of our Life Group meetings at my old church. We talked about how the church itself is a community and yet the church needs to reach to other communities - and lots of them!

Every time we discussed it, we would talk about something different. It also applied to everything that we did. When we played games together, we were building community. When we ate together, we were...

My Loan is Forgiven - For now

I was having a discussion on the phone with a couple of my kids this past week and they were excited because the federal government has made the decision that impacts a lot of young people. They were both thrilled that the federal government has given them some temporary forgiveness on their student loans because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

My son also said that he received word from his mortgage provider that they too were giving them a couple of "free months" bec...

Post-Easter Thoughts

Now that we have completed the Easter Holiday we're probably reflecting on how quiet things were this year. Many of us are used to gathering with our families and enjoying some time together that we don't get at any other time of the year.

Instead; it was an Easter of isolation and a lot of silence and time to look inside ourselves. Maybe you are like me and you actually enjoyed this quiet time? It was a chance to spend some time in silence, willing to listen t...