Blog Archives

OK, after some time to reflect and pray about yesterday's events, it's time to speak up and speak out. Yesterday morning, racism reared its ugly head in our community and confronted our church and my family like a slap in the face. As people walked through our church's small parking lot to go and worship the Lord, it was discovered that someone had written a vile racial slur (which I will not publish here) in the snowbank along the edge of our parking lot. We do not know if this was written by some ignorant person who just randomly picked ...

San Juan, Puerto Rico –Life After Maria With about 40% of electric customers still without power, almost four months after Hurricane Maria, life has been changed in many ways for many people. Some of Joe’s students lost everything. Power returned to our house after 74 days and we can attest to how much physical and mental energy, plus monetary cost, it took to modify our routine and activities. Joe stayed in Puerto Rico for the duration and is still feeling a lack of energy. Many have suffered greatly as they are cleaning out wet and moldy ...

Tom writes: When considering how and what to write in my Christian testimony, I was unsure where to begin. After much thought, I decided to start with some background about my early life. I grew up in Rensselear Falls, New York. A VERY small town just outside of Canton, New York. As a little boy, I remember spending a great deal of time in hospitals. My mother had a heart defect, which continued to get worse as I grew up and she eventually passed away when I was six. My father was suddenly left with a young son to raise on his own. I only ...

Our stories started differently. Ted was raised as a preacher’s kid and understood the Gospel from a young age. (Think “Understanding” equals “Faith”? -Nope). Combine a retentive mind and a hard heart and you get a teenager who could spout all the right answers in Sunday school but had no living faith. Linda attended a church where no Gospel was preached. Jesus divine? Maybe. Empty tomb? Only in the most symbolic sense. Then along came Young Life. Linda heard the Gospel for the first time. Accepted Christ at the age of sixteen at a Young ...

Dave was born in Niagara Falls, NY and spent most of his life on a farm in rural north central Pennsylvania. The extended illness and death of his father when Dave was 13 years old had quite an impact on his early years. Although he grew up in the church it wasn’t until he was in his early twenties that he made a profession of faith while living in the mid-west and working for an automotive parts manufacturer. Pat was born in Grand Rapids, MI. After the death of her mother when she was three years old, she was raised first by a foster ...

The Lord has given us a story full of grace and mercy. We pray that it extends as a blessing of future generations. I grew up for the first six years of my life in family that went to church, but after my parents’ divorce, we stopped going. My mom, who raised me, is an atheist. My life was full of kids that constantly made fun of me. I felt worthless, unwanted, and desperately needed a friend. The Lord gave me that friend in Ninth Grade. Amy loved me unconditionally. She told me about Jesus and His love for me. She walked with me down the ...

I was born in Denver, CO, the oldest of five siblings, into a non-churched home. My mother knew it was important for her children to go to church.  She sent us to local churches and store-front church, but she did not take us to church. One more move placed our family across the street from the Denver Seventh Day Baptist Church and next door to the parsonage.  The pastor's wife gave me piano lessons in her home and allowed me to practice on her piano. I loved that church. I loved the church music. I loved Vacation Bible School, I loved going ...

THE ADVANCE OF THE GOSPEL in Asia over the last century has been extraordinary. Christian churches are growing and thriving in countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and of course South Korea, which boasts some of the largest churches in the entire world. Yet the gospel is also taking root in countries where we might not expect it to. For example, a movement of Reformed churches is growing in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world. Moreover, the exponential growth of the house church movement in China is remarkable ...

Marvin writes: My years, up to age eighteen, I spent growing up on a Vermont dairy farm. I was son number three in a family of five sons and no daughters. My home life was stable despite the fact that my parents were un-equally yoked: my mother a devout Christian and my father for all of my years at home was a secular moralist. We lived, at least on the surface, by the Ten Commandments. Schooling for me was eight years in a three-room public school where up until the mid-1950s we had Bible reading twice per day. High school was two years in ...

Dave writes: I grew up in a church that was not “reformed,” but I became more and more *reformed as I read the Bible. I didn't realize how reformed I had become until I was in a Bible study, and someone mentioned that I would probably end up a Presbyterian. To this day, I do not care for altar calls where the same people go up Sunday after Sunday, never truly believing they are saved. This happened frequently in my childhood church. While I was in the Navy, I became involved with an organization called Servicemen for Christ. We used Campus ...

A few months ago, our church had an anniversary of sorts that quietly slipped by unnoticed (which was fine with me). Though it’s hard to believe, I have now served as the Pastor of this congregation for ten years! And over these years, God has continually proved His faithfulness and steadfast love to me and to our church. He has provided for us and blessed us in countless ways, and I praise Him for the work He is doing among us. So I'd like to kick off this blog by reflecting a bit on some of my experiences over the last ten years, as a means ...