Category: Community

3/31/2026 0 Comments

The Joy of Sharpening

Ugandan Strong Leader's Hand Training--God's Word

When I lived in the Philippines from 1974-‘77, it took three weeks for a letter to get from Manila to anyone in the United States. My parents did not call our grandparents so we could talk on the phone because it was way too expensive. So I continually marvel at the ability to connect with brothers and sisters in the faith from Colorado, California, Georgia, and Uganda via ZOOM calls. We can provide leadership training for 90 minutes and see each other and interact for very little cost—incredible!

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3/14/2026 0 Comments

What the Gospel Looks Like

David Nasser

David Nasser was invited in his car late at night to a Southern Baptist youth group meeting the next evening by his weed-sharing friend.[1] He told his friend he needed his parents’ permission, so the two of them went inside David’s house. David yelled out to his sleeping parents that he was sorry to wake them, but needed to know if it was okay for him to attend his friend’s church group the next day. Expecting a solid “No” from his Shiite Muslim father, he was surprised when his dad asked him the name of the church. His friend yelled out, “Shades,” synonymous with Shades Mountain Baptist Church. “I know those people,” his dad replied and gave David permission to go.

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2/25/2025 0 Comments

Crafting Circles Not Cliques

Todd Foreman

My West Point classmate Todd Foreman is the most generous person I know in helping those around him, whether they be friends, coworkers, family, or those who are underprivileged, disabled, neglected, or hurting. Todd has a soft spot in his heart that is bigger than the state of Texas, where he resides. Sometimes, to his detriment, he puts the needs of others before his own needs in keeping with the Apostle Paul’s admonition, “Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3,4). Todd is a make-the-circle-bigger kind of leader.

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8/2/2023 0 Comments

Thinking of You

When there is a death in the family, it is so encouraging to see people rally around and step up to provide support and comfort through meals, cards, flowers, phone calls, and just being present to listen, console, and encourage. The sting of death is not erased; the pain is real and sometimes overwhelming, but a caring community can and does make a difference.

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6/5/2023 1 Comment

Drinking the Living Water

If you have ever hiked in the mountains, you know that the higher you climb, the purer the water source will be. But as the streams flow downward, they become part of the forest, and now purification tablets are needed to protect against giardia parasites which can cause giardiasis. Continuing downward, the stream merges with other streams and becomes a river. More pollutants are added as waste flows into the river from drainage systems, and people throw their trash, dump chemicals, etc., into the water. So what is my point?

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3/17/2023 1 Comment

Pickleball

Last week I decided to learn how to play the fastest-growing sport in the nation—pickleball. So far, I have played five times in three locations and met over forty people. The game is described as a marriage between ping pong and badminton, or as I like to say, ping pong on steroids. It is a ton of fun, and I’m amazed at how friendly and welcoming the community is.

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12/23/2022 0 Comments

Practice Hospitality This Holiday Season

Hospitality unites people. It helps us find room to help others in need and is the antidote to hostility and division. This holiday season, especially in these times of intense division, we should all practice this virtue and apply its power to strengthen relationships at home, work, with our fellow citizens, and even strangers. In the Christmas story (Luke 2:1-20), Mary was in labor while her husband, Joseph, sought shelter. The innkeeper had no available rooms, but seeing Mary’s desperate situation, offered the holy family shelter in a stable where the animals resided.

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10/10/2022 0 Comments

Trees and Fungi

Suzanne Simard is the tree professor at the University of British Columbia.[1] She discovered through her research that yew trees communicate chemically through fungi with their neighboring trees for mutual defense. Trees are connected below ground through a fungi network that resembles the human brain’s neural networks. For example, Simard observed a Douglas fir injured by insects that seemingly passed chemical warning messages to a nearby ponderosa. The pine tree produced defense enzymes that protected it against insects. Similarly, birch trees protected fir from Armillaria root disease. When trees are dying, they pass off as much as 40% of their carbon to their neighboring trees.

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10/24/2021 0 Comments

Individualism

Jim Van Yperen wrote a terrific book on resolving conflict entitled Making Peace: A Guide to Overcoming Church Conflict. One of the topics Yperen tackles is individualism. He notes specifically that western individualism actually works against spiritual vitality and fellowship because it breeds autonomy at the cost of biblical community. Individualism results in consumerism.

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2/8/2021 1 Comment

No Regrets

Started in 1994, the No Regrets Men’s Conference is an annual event whose purpose is to challenge men in their relationship with God at home, at work and in their ministry. Hosted in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the organizers seek to create an environment over about a four-hour period that ministers in a great variety of host sites around the world. Spiritual growth is set in motion when men and boys come together to worship and to hear challenging messages. What is also encouraging is the effort by the leaders to provide ongoing Bible Studies and messages designed to stimulate men spiritually so they don’t just experience a “one and done” but have impetus to keep maturing.

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1/23/2021 1 Comment

Fellowship: Why It Matters

Fellowship is a rich concept much deeper in meaning than we probably realize. In Hebrew the primary word for fellowship is šelem and it occurs 87 times in the New International Version (NIV). Only once is it used in the context of meeting with others (Psalm 55:13,14), in every other instance fellowship connects to God through the giving of a fellowship offering. The fellowship or peace offering in the Old Testament emphasized the opportunity the Hebrews had for close communion with God. This fellowship was consummated by eating the flesh of an animal presented as an offering to God (Leviticus 3 and 7:11-21). The peace offering meant that all was well relationally between Yahweh and His people and it was the last offering given.[1]

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9/2/2020 0 Comments

Two Sides of Belonging

Meditation
Acts 12:1,2--About that time King Herod cruelly attacked some who belonged to the church, and he killed James, John’s brother, with the sword.

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3/16/2020 2 Comments

Corona Virus

The numbers worldwide continue to rise: 181,377 cases, 7119 deaths, 78,085 recoveries.[1] Worldwide reactions are dramatic: airline flights cancelled, large numbers of quarantined populations, countries with closed borders, bans on gatherings over 250 people, schools closed, colleges reverting to online classes, sports leagues cancelled, plummeting stock markets etc. Behold a pandemic! The cause of this chaos is a virus named “SARS-CoV-2” and the disease it causes is called “coronavirus disease 2019” (abbreviated “COVID-19”).

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4/29/2017

Tribe

Sebastian Junger wrote a book entitled Tribe. It is a great work about homecoming and belonging particularly effective in explaining why our nation’s veterans tend to suffer so much as they return to a land that itself is messed up. One of Junger’s observations was that when our nation was first colonized the American Indians virtually never left their tribes to become part of the colonists. Conversely, history records that numbers of settlers freely left their towns and cities to join surrounding tribes. Evidently, the tribal egalitarian way of life, the common sharing of possessions, and loyalty to each other attracted people disenchanted with overly-strict rules and the independent-spirit so prevalent among European settlers. Junger admits that tribes were not perfect and were often marked by cruelty and depravity in the manner in which they attacked other tribes. Yet, there was

9/25/2016 4 Comments

Six Benefits of Helping the Poor

I want to share with you a moment burned into my mind as a poignant testimony to generosity. My daughter, Sarah and I, experienced this moment in the city of Cerro de Pasco, Peru, in 2002. In the course of ministering to a small church in this town located at the top of the Andean mountains, we met street children who were collecting trash or anything of value they could find on the streets, in order to garner a handful of coins.

Although home to one of the deepest silver mines in the world, Cerro de Pasco’s 70,000 inhabitants are mostly poor. One would think that any money a child could scrape would be zealously guarded and used for food or clothing. But these joyful children tithed from what they had in order to give to missionaries. It was a demonstration of the poorest giving to the poor to honor and expand God’s work. Someday I hope to learn how God blessed them!

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9/8/2013

What Do People See?

While driving to an appointment I stopped at a traffic light and happened to look to my left. A prominent sign welcomed people to Northwest Portland on what at one time was a nicely landscaped plot. But whoever had planted and carefully constructed an image meant to greet people had allowed the site to fall into disrepair. Trash littered the ground and it looked like it had been sometime before anyone had tended to the plants.

I’m glad that a community purchased nice vegetation and an attractive sign welcoming people to their city. But if they don’t “tend to the garden” an eyesore and poor impression of their town is the end result for anyone paying attention.

11/6/2012 0 Comments

Partnership--A Better Perspective

Meditation
3 John 5-8—Dear friend, you are showing faithfulness by whatever you do for the brothers, especially when they are strangers. They have testified to your love in front of the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God, since they set out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from pagans. Therefore, we ought to support such men so that we can be coworkers with the truth.

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10/12/2006

Body of Christ

Fran* came in the ministry center for food. She is a tall woman with a firm handshake and eyes that tell me she is weathering brutal storms. She sat across from me and shared her story. Her husband is 6’ 3” and once weighed 240 lbs. Now he weighs 140 lbs and is barely clinging to life. For years he sprayed Crossbow, a chemical treatment that kills weeds, on poison oak and blackberries. Often when the summer heat bore down he took off his protective gloves. Eventually, the amount of chemicals that penetrated his skin produced a condition I cannot even pronounce that is now killing him.