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But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matthew 6:6

Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. Luke 5:16

As a pastor, it has been my privilege to be financially supported so that I might give myself to the word and prayer. When it comes to prayer I still consider myself in first grade. I humbly confess my lack of prayer and lack of knowledge of prayer.

Knowing how little I know, I would still like to share two unusual ways to pray that I believe I can commend.

Pacing Prayer
One of the privilege of being a pastor were the days I had the […]

Pastors, young mothers, and plenty of others face a common challenge. How do we create structure in an unstructured week?

The more unstructured time you have the more you need to manage yourself. As a pastor for twenty-five years and an author/speaker for five years I have had to think about this plenty. As I talk with families, I am burdened by the number of stay-at-home moms who have difficulty bringing structure to their week.

Yes, I do think this topic is related to family discipleship. As a parent we have multiple pressures and limited time. Not only that but our children will remember the atmosphere of our home. Psychologists tell us that the number one high-school problem is stress from over scheduled children. We are packing […]

He brought me to his banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. Song of Solomon 2:4

The Bridegroom
This past weekend I watched a friend’s son get married. Being a witness has a pleasure different than when I lead the service. As an officiant, when the bride enters, I, as well as the congregation, rightly focus on her.

But this past weekend as a witness I had the pleasure of focusing most of my attention on the groom. He was the one I had watched grow from an infant. He was the one that had sat under my preaching.

As I watched his face I saw the emotions I felt thirty years ago: joy, yearning, innocence, new beginnings, gratefulness, and amazement that this beautiful bride should be […]

As a college student, I remember the impression this story made on me in the context of Inductive Bible Study. The principles have guided my study of Scripture as a pastor and teacher for 30 years.

As I was meditating on Scripture today, I realized there is a whole new generation who has not heard of this story. With the onslaught of social media this type of forced focus is needed even more!

Agassiz was the founder of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology and a Harvard professor. The following account was written by one of his students, Samuel H. Scudder, one of his students wrote this account “Agassiz and the Fish, by a Student” (American Poems, 3rd ed. , pp. 450-54). […]