The Pastor's Perspective

 I am excited for this Thursday night. Me and my wife will be going to a red carpet showing of "This is Our Story",a project of EIU that will highlight several stories about Ashmore, Oakland, and Kansas. If you would like more information on this project and watch it when it comes on the air check out this link . As I was thinking about this project and looking forward to seeing the finished product. I thought about how everyone really enjoys stories. This is something that I have learned in the past several years and something that I have added to my ministry/ preaching. Most of Jesus teaching ministry was focused on telling stories. In fact the vast majority of the bible is story after story, many of which have stood the test of time.  The reason this is the case is because stories connect us together. Stories speak to us, we relate to them on a personal level. The stories we hear and love relate to us because it speaks to our common problems, or our common loves, or hopes

I ran across an article the other day that showed several movies that people thought would be a flop but really turned out to be a fantastic movie after all.  I thought the article was interesting because many of the movies that were listed are some of my favorite movies I like to watch. If you want to read the article your self just follow this   link . As I thought about this article it got me thinking about how sometimes we can be so quick to judge something before we even look into it our selves. We seem to be so quick to believe the worst in people, before hearing them out first. So quick to jump to conclusions before ever getting to the truth or getting all of the facts. Look at what the Bible says about this:  “He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him. ”-(Prov 18:13) I don't know about you but I can safely say that I have experienced that passage more times than I would like to admit. So many times in my life I had mad a rash judgment a

      This past Sunday I preaching out of  (Isaiah 44:1-5) and I talked about how God can restore us after we have sinned against him. (You can listen to the sermon here ) In that passage we read this "For I will pour water upon the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground, I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and blessing upon thine offspring".         Now one of the things I touched upon in that sermon was the idea that no matter what our relationship with God looks like right now, we should never be satisfied. Another words we should always have a desire for a closer walk with God no matter how close to God we are right now. If our walk is not what it should be, then by all means we need to desire a closer walk with God. However if our walk with God has never been better, than we do not need to stay satisfied with that, but rather desire a closer walk with God than we currently have.      Now here is why I say that. Can you ever get to a point in your relationship with God

     Some of you may or may not know this, but I have a guilty pleasure. I like to watch those video's when the take an old rusty, beat up item and restore it back to its former glory. I love watching an item that would other wise be thrown out in the trash get a make over. There is something about seeing the before and after shots that intrigues me for some reason.      Now I am not very skilled at fixing things. In fact for the most part I am all thumbs when it comes to working with tools (something I am trying to get better at). So for me when I watch those video's I am amazed at the skill and work that it takes to restore items that I probably would overlook or throw away.      Now there is something else that I must confess. I don't normally watch the videos all the way through. That's right I love the video's, I watch them regularly, but I rarely if ever watch the video all the way through. For me I want to jump to the part of the video where the project is al