The Pastoral Grind

(Originally written for The Baldwin Bulletin: Pastor's Column December 16, 2020) Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king… (Matthew 2:1) In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered…And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up…to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem…And while they were there, the time came for [Mary] to give birth. (Luke 2:1-6) Birthdays are important—for celebrations, for legal reasons, for tracking growth and development. As we get closer to December 25, many Christians are looking forward to celebrating the birthday of Jesus. Is it his birthday, though, right—December 25, Year 0? Years are often put in terms of BC, or “Before Christ,” and AD, or “Anno Domini”—“in the year of the Lord.” BC counts down, AD counts up. When we flip the calendar to January 1, it will be AD 2021 because that’s the next number. While the Bible shows the Israe

So if you're in the CRC/RCA/other close denominations bubble, you may know that the CRCNA has had a committee working on the matter of homosexuality and what we ought to believe/uphold about that. The committee did great work, unfortunately it's 176 pages long--though, it needed most if not all of that. If you want to see the original report, check out the link here . If you want to see the official summary, click here.   What follows was originally written by me as  “Twitter cliff notes.” I started a little ways in and not every point is hit or every citation perfect. Some parts I left empty, because I assume all Christians should have a similar understanding (though I know that's not always true). Hopefully I've accurately captured the gist of the report. I cleaned it up a little bit from the original tweets. Enjoy... Pages 1-2: Table of Contents Pages 3-4: I. Introduction Didn’t write anything Pages 4-15: II. Preamble Didn’t write anything Pages 15-37: III.

 (Originally written for The Baldwin Bulletin: Pastor's Column October 21, 2020) A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever …What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after . (Ecclesiastes 1:4, 9-11) A thought that frequently came to mind when I was a teenager was, “They just don’t understand.” Usually it was about my parents, who I saw as being unnecessarily strict and out of touch. They just didn’t get how things were for a young man in the 2000s. It had been 25 years since they were my age. They couldn’t possibly know what life was like. Looking back, my teenage self had some growing up to do and, now that I have my own children, I understand a bit more w

  (Photo cred: Rebecca Martin) (Originally written for The Baldwin Bulletin: Pastor's Column August 26, 2020) First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world. For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I mention you always in my prayers, asking that somehow by God's will I may now at last succeed in coming to you. For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you—that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith, both yours and mine. (Romans 1:8-12) One of the downsides of having lived in a number of different places where I’ve met and developed friendships is the difficulty of maintaining those relationships. I have my friends from high school in northwest Indiana, friends from college and summers in youth ministry who now live from coast to coast and Canada, and friends from other churches and towns I’ve

( Photo by  Jess Bailey  from  Pexels ) (Originally written for The Baldwin Bulletin: Pastor's Column May 15, 2020) Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. (James 4:13-17) Most of the time we feel like we’re in control of things. We make plans and schedules about how life should go. The reality, though, is only God knows what will happen. We can debate politically whether businesses and gatherings should be open or closed. Should each be allowed to decide on their own or should government officials mandate that? However, God reminds us t

Imagine a chart or graph that accounted for the ways each of us spend our time. Hopefully about a quarter to a third is dedicated to sleep. There’d likely be a good chunk for our work—in or outside of the home. If work requires us to commute or we like to travel, we might also see a sizable allotment for transportation time. You can fill in the rest for your schedule. Each of us are different from each other—how/what we think about, what we do, what we get excited/passionate about. Some of us have lots of ideas and we’re constantly trying to create. Some of us come up with ideas occasionally and pursue them passionately. Some of us mainly follow and apply ourselves to others’ ideas. Especially if you fit into one of the first two categories, imagine the chart wouldn’t just capture our lives in general terms, but got into the specifics. There’d be all these little slices, these slivers, identifying time spent on a particular process from coming up with an idea to forming a