Grandpa's Reflections

I’m reading through the gospels chronologically to discover for myself the process Jesus used to make disciples. This approach has been recommended in multiple disciple making resources, so I thought I’d give it a try. Today I read the story of the man who comes to Jesus asking that Jesus follow him to his house…

If you’ve ever constructed a house you know how important the foundation is.  We added an addition to one of our houses and the foundation was ¼” low where the new foundation joined the old foundation.  My brother fought that discrepancy from floor to roof and couldn’t make it right.  The gutters always leaked and…

We live in a transaction based culture.  If I start thinking of all the transactions I’ve completed already today it will make my head spin.  Some transactions make sense.  I went to the grocery store and selected some food and then paid the checker for them.  The challenge for those of us who follow Jesus…

The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the one who loves those around them will create community. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together: The Classic Exploration of Christian Community quoted in the neighboring church: getting better at what Jesus said matters most by Rick Rusaw and Brian Mavis. It took…

I had the privilege of preaching on Sunday in our continuing series on the sermon on the mount.  In chapter 6 Jesus shifts His teaching from a series of “whats” (principles to live by) to a series of “whys”.  Knowing how much we think about money Jesus begins His instruction with some pointed comments on…

One of the things I inherited from my mother is thinking out loud.  This is why I enjoy studying the Bible with other people, because I often see things as I’m talking about a passage that I had never seen before.  This morning a friend and I were looking at Paul’s speech to the mob…

This isn’t about fish.  It is some reflections on our time at the BASS Church Workers Convention.  We were there to promote mygrandmatime and that included Grandma presenting two workshops on Friday morning.  This left me alone to take care of our booth in the exhibitor area.  The number of people who came through the exhibition…

Faith based films have become quite common and the quality is improving.  Most people are familiar with the Kendrick brothers and movies like Fireproof.  My favorite faith based films come from a much lesser known production company called Kelly’s Filmworks.  One of my main dislikes in the Kendrick brothers films is that point in the…

I’ve been struggling with the tradition that we should attempt to pattern ourselves after the first century church.  This assumes that the first century church was filled with people who perfectly lived out the guidance of the Holy Spirit.  This passage makes a strong case for this not being true.  Despite that there is an…