Category: Personal Testimony

  • “Mysteries” in the Orthodox Church

    One word that I found difficult to understand when I studied Orthodoxy is the word “mystery”. In particular, the Orthodox Church refers to “The Mysteries” often in terms of the Seven Sacraments. One page puts it well. Unlike some other Christian denominations, which may view sacraments primarily as symbolic rituals, Orthodox Christians believe that the…

  • Difficulties of being a pastor’s wife

    Life in a fishbowl. People notice your parenting, your actions, everything you do. You can’t have a bad day. Husband devoted to his first love – Christ’s church. He’s on 24-hour call. Few real friends in the church in whom you can confide due to rampant gossip in the church. Financial concerns – pastors don’t…

  • EG: Unit 1, Day 1

    Sometimes I think that Christians use words deliberately intended to confuse people who don’t already speak their lingo. I went to a Halloween party at a local church which had a puppet show. There were a lot of non-Christians there but the puppets kept quoting scripture in a series of passages which meant very little…

  • EG: Memorizing Scripture

    I really respect people who can memorize. I can’t. I have very poor memorization skills. Because I am so back at memorization, I have some tricks that the EG materials don’t list. My best memory trick is to write out the verse on a whiteboard. I then erase words and practice saying the verse. I…

  • Experiencing Experiencing God

    Who Am I? I am a pastor of a small church in the upper midwest USA. We have a group of ladies that went through the Experiencing God materials this past summer and asked me to teach it at our Wednesday Night Prayer/Bible Study Meetings. Thus, I am facilitating a group of about sixteen people…

  • Dr. N. T. Wright – Incredible guy!

    It may be too early to say for sure but it seems quite possible to me that N. T. Wright may be the next Martin Luther. Luther shot across the bow of the church with his understanding of justification found in his reading of Romans. Wright is reading Romans with fresh eyes in our day.…

  • Christians and the Law

    I have been a Christian for a over 25 years and have struggled in one way or another with one question above all other questions during my years. The question centers around the relationship of the Christian and the Law. Where the problem comes in is with the seemingly irreconcilable passages where Christ and Paul…

  • The first step

    As a father of six young children, I can remember with each one of them how my wife and I waited for their first step. It was an exciting time that also opened the doors for dangerous times. No longer would the baby be safely confined to a crib, but the baby would soon be…

  • Planning a Genealogy Trip

    I have taken a few genealogy trips in the past year and thought I’d write down what I learned in order to aid those who are considering similar trips. Before Leaving on the Roadtrip Start with what you know. Collect names and dates of births, marriages and deaths. Interview all living relatives. It is probably…

  • The Wolfpack (Fiction)

    Any resemblance to reality in the following story is purely intentional. The herd moved along slowly across the wide open plains. There wasn’t much cover in this stretch of the plains. There were no trees for the herd to hide in if enemies attacked. They were oblivious to any attack that might happen. Sure there…