The Enemy Among Us

I recently had a great time traveling to other churches and sharing about what God is doing in Thief River Falls and Northwest Minnesota. I shared encouragement from the Bible and from our experience about the hard work that has been accomplished by faith, our labor that has been prompted by love, and endurance inspired [...]

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Love is More Important than Life

John 15:13
Jesus said that the way to measure people’s love is in their willingness to give up their life for their friends. Jesus showed us how much he loves us by dying for us so that we can be friends with God. But he doesn’t leave it at that. He also says, “Love each other [...]

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Love is More Important than Prayer

1 Peter 4:7-9
There is a very curious passage in the Bible that says, “The end of the world is coming soon so be very diligent in your prayers.” I’m guessing if we all knew the world was going to end, we’d all be a bit more earnest in our prayers.
But then it goes on to [...]

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Love is More Important than Talents and Skills

1 Corinthian 13
You’ve probably been to a wedding where you’ve heard that famous poem on love from the Bible that goes, “Love is patient. Love is kind…” And so on.
The real point of that poem is that love is more important than any gift, skill or talent you may possess. That it doesn’t matter what [...]

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Love is More Important than Money

1 John 3:16-17
Over the course of our marriage, my wife and I have had many financial struggles through which she’s always reassured me over and over again that “our love is more important than money.”
Indeed, that is true, and I’m sure most people would agree. But it is also precisely because of our love that [...]

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Love is More Important than Obeying the Rules

(I recorded 5 “Minute Meditations” that are airing on KTRF Radio this week. I will be posting the transcripts this week.)
Matthew 22:34-40
One day an expert in religion tried to trap Jesus by asking him, “Which is the most important commandment?”
In other words: “Which rule is more important, Jesus? Not stealing or not lying? Not murdering [...]

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Church for Outsiders

Lenten Journey – Day 21
As a leadership team we are trying to define/refine our focus. Who are we trying to reach? The temptations is to say “everyone,” but what usually happens in that case is you reach no one.
The reason the question becomes particularly important is it defines our priorities. How are we going [...]

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Kindness Challenge

People from our church recently canvassed our community with kindness. We had two teams that competed against each other to do the most acts of kindness. We paid for peoples’ laundry at the laundromat, pumped and paid for peoples’ gas, returned shopping carts at the grocery store, bought and gave away flowers, picked up litter, [...]

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Jesus Wept

We have just one tree in our backyard. It’s a big Elm. One of the first things we noticed about this tree is that it’s very sticky. It “leaks” sap all over everything, coating our entire backyard with a syrupy goo. Then the first week of August, it started dropping its leaves (they are all [...]

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Lessons Learned in Rurality

As our time in Cushing is quickly coming to a close, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on some of the lessons I’ve learned over the past 2 1/2 years. I have grown a lot and I am a better husband, father, pastor and friend because of my time here.
LESSONS LEARNED [...]

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