Generosity

Yesterday, my son bought an X-box game for sixty-two dollars - only he doesn’t have an X-box.  When I asked him why he did this, he said that a young boy who sells papers had lost his X-box game while selling papers downtown, so he and some of the other teenagers went looking for this X-box game but could not find it.  So, he bought a new one for him.  Again, I asked him why and he said, “you should have seen this kid’s face when we couldn’t find his game.”

This is not the only example of our son’s generosity.  Once, when Kenneth was a young boy, Deanna and I were talking about our financial situation in the dining room and our son came in and said that he could help by giving us his allowance.  Another time a couple of years ago he and Abigail saved their paper route money to pay for a day at the water park in Denver.  They also paid for all of us and all of their cousin’s family to go.

Sometimes you can become rich by being generous or poor by being greedy. Generosity will be rewarded: Give a cup of water, and you will receive a cup of water in return.   (Proverbs 11:24-25)

I am amazed at the generosity of my son.  But I shouldn’t be – he is just like his Father.  No, not me - Kenneth is like his Heavenly Father – generous to a fault!

Father, help me to have a generous heart – help me to be more like my son and You.  Amen

The One Who Carried me

During my first year of college, in the spring of 1982, I went through a period of depression when I thought that it might be better to die than to go on living.  I remember walking up University Ave. to the bridge over I – 25.  For a long time I stood watching the traffic going under the bridge.

Most of my life I have struggled with looking inward and selfishly not looking outward.  This was no exception to that.  I could not understand what God wanted with me.  It was a long walk back to the Baptist Student Union.

When I got back to the BSU I sat alone in the large classroom there and began to write out my feelings on paper.  It took the shape of a kind of poem.

Sometimes in the deepest darkest valley
Where no light can be seen
And no hope can be found
When all seems lost
And nothing can be done
I find myself

At one time I saw from the Mountain top
This road that I now cannot see
I looked and I saw

But now who will show me the way
Who will take my hand and lead me

My friends don’t understand
And I to scared to try and let them know

They look at each other and say
Why doesn’t he smile

Oh if only I could tell them
If only I could bury my head in their shoulders
And cry my despair

But no – I’ll hold on,
Because I know they are tired of hearing
My complaints
And my whimpers.

And now . . . as my last smile fades slowly away . . . . . . . . . . .

What’s this?
A hand
A nail scared hand
A strong sturdy hand . . . . . .

And now
Now I can see the road again!

Yes, I guess I knew all along
That even when my closest friends
Couldn’t see my hurt and despair
That the One
The Precious
I Am
Would hold my hand


This was an amazing event in my life.  It was like a light came into that classroom and lightness filled my being.  When my focus moved from me to God I was strengthened and able to find peace of mind and soul.

When we look at the darkness around us we cannot find peace – everything is dark and empty - our way is lost and we do not see God.  But when we look at Jesus – when we look at the cross – when we see the empty tomb, then we are strengthened, encouraged, and we have direction and joy.  Jesus Christ can and does meet our needs but we have to look at Him and not ourselves to get it.

Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you
rest. All of you, take up My yoke and learn from Me, because I am
gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves.
For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
-Matthew 11:28-30 HCSB

On the Other Side of the Road

Toward the end of my college days I was the pastor of Hachita Baptist Church, a small country church in the boothill of New Mexico. (1987 – 1990) The church was 120 miles from New Mexico State University in Las Cruces where I attended school. Often I would travel there on Fridays and spend Saturdays visiting people, than on Sundays I would travel back to school in the late afternoon or evenings.

One day about 4:30 pm when I was in a hurry to get back to Las Cruces to see a young lady, I noticed a car with people standing next to it on the other side of the interstate just as I was pulling onto the road. As soon as I saw these people I felt a tug in me to go help these people – I might have even heard a voice . . . But there was this young lady in Las Cruces and these people were going the other direction and surely someone going that way would stop and help them out. So began my arguments.

The further I traveled away from these people the more I felt that I should go back and help them. Yet the further away I got the more reason I had for not going back. After all, someone else would help them, so why should I? As I neared Deming, about forty miles from these people, my heart began to physically hurt me. I knew that I had to turn back. I believe that I could not have gone further away from these people even if I had tried to. I surrendered to the Holy Spirit’s leading.

When I arrived at the scene, they were still there. It was a mother and her son. It was a hot day – not unusual in the desert of Southwestern New Mexico. The mother looked dejected, parched, and devoid of emotion. I learned that the husband had started walking towards the next town in order to hire some help about an hour ago. I offered to carry them into Lordsburg and pick up her husband on the way.

As we traveled in my little Toyota pickup truck to Lordsburg, they began to tell me their story. The lady told me that they had been there all day and no one had stopped to help them even when they tried to wave someone down. The lady looked at her son and said, “see son - I told you if we just prayed that God would send someone to help us. We should have prayed this morning.”

The boy looked at his watch and than said to his mother, rather sarcastically, “mother we prayed at 4:30 - over an hour ago – when dad was still here. This has nothing to do with God. We just finally found a nice person”

I’m not sure the boy believed me when I shared my story with him but his mother was praising God, looking refreshed and excited - so was I. What a huge transformation in this mother. It reminded me of the familiar verse of scripture: “Those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not faint.” -Isaiah 40:31 God is amazing!

Coming to Sitka

While I was in Campus Ministry at Western New Mexico University from 1998 to 2003 there were a lot of pastorless churches in Southwestern Baptist Association. As I preached in these churches I became concerned about the relatively short term of their pastors. So, I began to look for ways to increase the tenure of these pastors. The Intentional Interim Minister ministry caught my attention. In short, this was a ministry where a church would call a specially trained interim minister who would lead the church through a study to help deal with issues from the church’s past that might cause a pastor to struggle and to help the church find a pastor who would be a good fit for them.

I received training in this ministry and began to work as the Intentional Interim Minister at First Baptist Church of Santa Clara. I had not anticipated that God would use this time to call me back into the pastoral ministry. But He did just that and in the summer of 2003 my résumé began to be sent around to churches that were seeking a pastor.

During this time, Deanna and I began to talk about the kind of place we would like to go to and we came up with a list of what we thought this place would look like.

1. in a major metropolitan location
2. a nearby Wal-Mart
3. lots of places to eat out
4. lots of places to go and things to see
5. a church of over 200 people (at least as large as my last church – preferably larger)
6. a church that provided insurance and paid the same or more than I was making
7. connected to roads so we could drive lots of places
8. preferably in the western United States

We were soon contacted by a church in Port Angeles, Washington. It fit our criteria and we were very excited about them and the possibilities of going there. I spoke for over an hour with their pastor search committee chairman, Bill Branch and was very encouraged. A couple of weeks later I received a call from a lady in the First Baptist Church of Sitka, Alaska. She was with their pastor search committee and was wondering if I would consider coming to Sitka. I of course, told her that I would pray about it – which I did. There was nothing about Sitka that fit what we where looking for so within a week I told her that I was not interested.

This began a period with no peace for me. I had trouble sleeping at night. I could not get Sitka off my mind. My son didn’t help matters either. He would ask me questions like, “why do you not want to go to Sitka dad – it Alaska, dad!” One time he came into my office and asked his, “why don’t you want to go to Sitka,” question. There were so many answers to this question but the biggest reason was that it was isolated. So, once again I explained to my son how isolated Sitka was and that we would not be able to just take off and go to all the places that we were always taking off and going to. So my son pulls this map from behind his back and says, “look at this dad!” (he has a map of Alaska showing Sitka). He lays it on the table and says, “Look at this dad. Do you see this blue stuff? It’s water dad. All you need is a boat and you can go anywhere you want.”

During this same period of time my dad had given me a book by Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church. The first words in the book were, “it’s not about you.” God convicted me that all the reasons that we had come up with for not wanting to go to Sitka were about us and not about what God wanted. He also said that, “this earth is not our home,’ and that we are aliens here.

Knowing something and teaching it to others is not the same thing as really believing something to the point that you live it. I found that although I had taught these principles that Rick Warren presents in his book that I was not living them out in my own life. So, we began to really pray about our decision, asking God to reveal to us what He wanted us to do and not what we wanted. We began to believe that God wanted us to be open to going anywhere.

Three months after I told the church in Sitka that I was not interested, I called and asked if they had found a pastor yet and if not, would they be willing to still consider me. At this point I still did not want to go to Sitka but I was welling to do whatever God wanted me to do even if it was something that I did not want to do.

Within a few weeks both Deanna and I were convinced that Sitka was where God wanted us to go so we began to pack up our belongings for a move. The week before Thanksgiving we went to Sitka for a visit. By this time we had no doubts that this was God’s plan for us. We had put our house on the market and we moved out over the Thanksgiving holiday. In fact we had moved out of our house before the church voted unanimously to call me as their new pastor.

We packed all our belongings into a Uhaul truck and drove from Silver City, New Mexico to Bellingham, Washington where we loaded our truck, our Uhaul, and us, onto an Alaska Marine Line ferry bound for Sitka. The ferry left Bellingham on a Friday, December 19, 2003 and arrived in Ketchikan, Alaska on Sunday morning, December 21.

In Ketchikan we changed ferrys. We arrived at 6:00 am and our next ferry was to leave at 4:00 pm in the afternoon. So, after breakfast we went to the First Baptist Church for their services. After the service the pastor, Doug Edwards and his wife Debbie took us to lunch with some of their church people. It was incredible that he bought us lunch – he was so friendly and welcoming. This was our first taste of Alaskan hospitality and we loved it.

We arrived in Sitka on Monday, evening December 22. As we drove off the ferry in the pouring rain, we see our new church members standing in the rain holding up a sign that says, “Welcome to your New Sitka Home.” At the time we thought that this was a big sacrifice for them but since we have lived here for several years, we have learned that if you want to do something you have to do it in the rain. We get over a hundred inches of rain a year here in Sitka. When we arrived at the parsonage there was a large Christmas tree with presents under it - hot stew on the stove top and pie in the oven. We felt like we had come home.

There is a wonderful peace in knowing that you are in God’s will.

In closing here are some new thoughts about our criteria:
1. in a major metropolitan location

* We live in a place where we personally know people like: the town mayor (he’s on my facebook), the chief of police, the family that owns the grocery store, our doctors wife and children . . .

2. a nearby Wal-Mart

* we get to take a ferry or airplane and travel to another town to go to Wal-Mart – on the way we see whales, porpoises, eagles, etc.

3. lots of places to eat out

* we know the owners and servers at everyplace we eat out at – they know our names and what we like and joke with us.

4. lots of places to go and things to see

* we see things everyday that most people only dream about – like over a hundred bald eagles feeding on the beach

5. a church of over 200 people (at least as large as my last church – preferably larger)

* we have room in our church for over 200 people – so our twenty regulars have lots of opportunity for growth

* Sitka is a very un-churched community of 8500

6. a church that provided insurance and paid the same or more than I was making

* Deanna’s job provides insurance that is better than we had and she now makes more money than she did in New Mexico. Since Abigail delivers the paper to the local dentist who also does orthodontia work, we are getting braces for both our children for half price.

7. connected to roads so we could drive lots of places

* We have traveled more places and seen more things than we ever did before we moved here thanks to the PFD (Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend – paid to every Alaskan resident for living here)

8. preferably in the western United States

* You cannot go any farther west than Alaska (Alaska’s Aleutian Island chain stretches further west than Hawaii

Is this what we had in mind? No, but God’s plan is always better than ours!

One last interesting tidbit:  Bill Branch the chairman of the pastor search committee that I spoke to in Port Angeles, Washington, gave my résumé to the church in Sitka.  He was their former, and longest serving pastor.

Advice about bad smells:

First - if you smell something bad, look for the cause sooner rather than later.

Second, if you are looking for a bad smell, start with yourself before you look everywhere else in the house.

My daughter asked me to help her look for some cough drops; she has been fighting a cold. So, I began to walk around the house looking for cough drops. (It might have helped had I had my glasses on).

As I was looking for cough drops, I kept smelling this bad smell and I was thinking; “when I find these cough drops I am going to have to look for what is causing this terrible smell that seems to be everywhere that I go.” This was my first mistake. I should have looked for the bad smell immediately.

Then, I hear my daughter say, “Bye dad! Have a good day!” and the door closes. So, she must have found the cough drops and left or she forgot about the cough drops that I have been so diligently looking for and left for school. So, now it is time to look for what is causing this bad smell.

I had my suspensions, because I watched my son with the dog out the kitchen window this morning. The dog was casting about the way he does when he is looking for the right spot to lay his mines, which always takes forever when you are late or in a hurry to leave. Our little dog, Buddy, does not have a dog door so we have to take him out to use his big outdoor bathroom. Kenneth was running late – the dog was taking too long so – he chased the dog around and scooped him up and carried him back inside. My suspension was that, either Kenneth got poop on his shoes from some that had not been cleaned up and carried it into the house or that Buddy had pooped in the house after not having been able to do it outside. Neither of these explanations explained why the smell was through the whole house. Did I mention that our multi-colored shag carpet is about the color of poop?

Yeah, about this time my mind kicks into gear. I look at my feet and realize that when I was looking for cough drops, I stepped into some of Buddy’s poop and I have tracked it all over the house. You can’t spot clean poop when you can’t see where all it has gone. So, the carpet will have to be steam cleaned. Ugh!

This event made me think of several spiritual truths. When you first sin, it smells and you know that something is wrong. You start looking for answers. Your sin rubs off on other parts of your life and affects all that you do. After a while if you do not recognize the sin in your life and clean it up, then you grow used to the smell and no longer recognize it as the sin that it is. You need God to clean it up and it is not good enough to ask God to clean one little spot. You need God to clean out your whole life.

Father, I pray with the Psalmist:
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
(Psalms 139:23-24)
-Amen