Walking The Walk

As busy as the holidays can be, sometimes it offers us a chance to enjoy a change of routine.  Some people get a little break from work or a break from school, and it's a good time to think about our daily routine the rest of the year.     At the beginning of last year, I encouraged my congregation to get into a daily habit of reading the Bible.  In fact, a few people challenged themselves to read their way through the entire Bible in 2024--a little at a time.  Now I don't know how many of them have followed through with that.  That can be a daunting challenge.  But I've kept up pretty well.  I've flipped back and forth between a few different reading plans.   I really enjoy The Charles F. Stanley Life Principles Daily Bible --that's the one I've used primarily.  It takes about a half-an-hour each morning, and there's a selection from the Old Testament, a selection from the New Testament, and something in there from Psalms and ...

It has been more than three months since I left my professional career and began full time ministry. It was a difficult choice leaving something I'd been doing for basically 37 years, and jumping into something I had only a year-and-a-half experience doing as a part-time bi-vocational pastor. But I knew it was God's plan for me.  I knew because God began closing doors on my professional career and opening doors in ministry.  The more I resisted where I knew God was leading me, the more miserable the environment I was working in became.  It got the place where I could no longer ignore the obvious--it was time to go.   Change is hard.  That’s what you hear a lot.  But actually, change is inevitable—it’s the decisions about change that are hard. Once I decided it was time to go, I trained my successor, I cleaned out my files and my office, and walked out the door in roughly six weeks. I do miss a couple people I worked with.  I thought I would miss t...