Beginning on Thursday, October 1, I will be taking a two-month sabbatical.I want to thank the elders of LowCountry Community Church for not only making this break possible, but strongly encouraging it. As a person with workaholic tendencies, it would be my style to just keep pressing on. But there are good reasons for God's command to regularly practice the princ...

My guess is that things have not always gone as you have planned. Sometimes life is anything but easy and your walk with Jesus has more worries than victories. In Philippians chapter one, Paul addresses some of his personal challenges then quickly moves to the problems facing the Philippians believers. He's told them that he will win either way, that his circumstances will...

Early in his career, Thomas Edison invented a vote-recording machine for use in legislative chambers. By moving a switch to the right or left, an official could votefororagainsta proposal without leaving his desk. The machine would replace the tedious business of marking ballots, counting them, etc. Elated with the prospects, Edison obtained a patenthis firstand headed fo...

Disorientation can be humorous. I mean, how many jokes get told on men because they become lost, but refuse to stop and ask for directions? Disorientation, however, can be much more serious than that. Airplane pilots are trained to deal with something in the aviation world called spatial disorientation. A pilot will tell you that it begins when a queasy knot settles in th...

"Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers." So goes the sage advice from president Harry Truman. I have books filling cabinets, nightstands, and bookshelves.I have full shelves in my office, home, and my study. My wife, Darlene, has always been incredibly patient with all of this and doesn't ask me too often to clean things out and get rid of some books. S...

Five Ways To Move Off A Plateau For Pastors Only (But you can take a peek, too!) If you're a church leader, you are well-acquainted with times of slow- or no-growth. Times whenthings have plateaued. Times of discouragement. Times even of decline. We're all dealing with these things in one way, shape, or form during these COVID-19 days, aren't we?Does it have to be this...

C.S. Lewis, in his bookMere Christianitywrote,"Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already. That is why children's games are so important. They are always pretending to be grown-upsplaying soldiers, playing shop. But all the time, they are hardening their muscles and sharpening their wits, so that the pretense of being ...

Embracing Forgiveness and Reconciliation Lessons from the Life of Joseph, Part Three Genesis 50:20 "To err is human, to forgive, divine." When Alexander Pope wrote those immortal words many years ago, he stated a truth that still resonates in our own hearts. Forgiving others seems to be one of the hardest things some of us ever have to do. Why? At times it is difficu...

Battling Loneliness Lessons from the Life of Joseph, Part Two Genesis 40 The great poet, John Milton, reminded us that loneliness is the first thing which God's eye named not good. In Genesis 2:18 God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." Our Creator, right at the beginning, knew that human beings need other human being...

Lessons from the Life of Joseph, Part One...