I’ve been hosting more and more guests at our new base of operations at 703 Kitsap Street. Every time someone comes to visit, I have the opportunity to retell the story of the provision of God. How a trio prayed over this boarded up, burned out house on September 6, 2018, and how I walked […]
Sabbatical
This September will mark the beginning of my 34th year as Senior Pastor of Chapel Hill. This is unusual. The average tenure of a Senior Pastor in the United States is 7.7 years. I’ve been in Gig Harbor more than four times longer than that. When my large-church colleagues ask me how I’ve stayed in […]
Are you a sinner?
My wife, Megan, was out of town this last weekend to celebrate her grandmother’s life at a memorial. She recounted to me how the pastor officiating had shared that he had full confidence that her grandmother was with Jesus. His reason why? Because of the questions he asked her when she last took communion. The […]
Does This Happen Often?
“Does this kind of thing happen often in Port Orchard?” asked Rosemary, incredulous. “Well, it certainly seems to happen more when I fast and pray,” I responded.
I met a young mom and her daughter in a restaurant in the 3 minutes it took Rosemary to pay the bill. Ten days later a text from her read… […]
Spiritual start-ups
I don’t know when they installed it. It certainly wasn’t during my time living there. But I’ll never forget driving the freeway past my home town of Yakima and seeing a large, garish sign that declared: “Yakima: The Palm Springs of Washington.” I actually laughed out loud. I’m not sure what ad agency came up […]
Big MO
If you are old enough to remember the original Monday Night Football, you might also remember commentator “Dandy” Don Meredith. When one team was hopelessly outgunned, Meredith would break into song: “The Party’s Over.” He also spoke of “Big Mo.” He wasn’t referring to the battleship Missouri. He was talking about “momentum.” When a team […]
For…
So…what do you do when you’ve spent months as a congregation, turning your focus outward, talking about what it means to be good neighbors, good citizens…? What do you do when you’ve filled a map in the lobby with stickers indicating ways in which your people are reaching out to really love the community around […]
Finding treasure…
There are many wonderful Chapel Hill ministries that had to take a hiatus last year. Isn’t it great, as we are breaking out of the COVID funk, to see so many things returning to normal? One that I’m particularly excited about is Vacation Bible School which will launch next week! We were able to expand […]
Our vagrant moderator
Last week was our “General Assembly,” the annual gathering of our national church, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC.) It is a big deal and you would have been proud of how Chapel Hill was represented. Pastor Megan was featured in a video about church planting. Pastor Julie chaired one of the standing committees. Pastor Rachel […]
Worshipping as consumers or contributors?
I know I’m a “young gun” (pun intended!). So, it might come as a surprise that this summer I’ll be celebrating my 10th year in vocational ministry. I am so grateful to God for his faithfulness over the last decade, during which time I have had the joy of leading worship in the local church […]