Slow, Boring, Faithful

A Church Attraction Strategy

Note: I wrote this for other pastors last Fall, after we did our "What are people looking for in a church?" series..  Now I want to share it with you.  I'd love to hear your thoughts! 

- Dave

Like many country churches, ours is figuring out how to manage a seismic shift in our community.  Our area’s population is dwindling; farms are larger, with fewer families; new residents aren’t related to old residents, they work elsewhere, and therefore ha

Pray, Love, Focus

Thanks for letting me be a part of the work here at Big Springs! 

Earlier this week I sent out a video review of our Annual Meeting, held this past Sunday. While I know change is hard, I’m encouraged about the steps we are taking. But I also want to emphasize that now comes the hard part. Implementation is where things can go sideways or, often, just fizzle away. 

Our Christian School in Pittsburgh was in its 35th year when I arrived as Executive Director, and in those year

Stuck in a Holding Pattern

In one of our favorite movies, A Christmas Story, Ralphie’s family is celebrating the best Christmas ever when disaster strikes: the neighbor’s dogs (those dastardly Bumpus hounds) break into the house and devour the Parker family turkey. 

“Oh, life is like that. Sometimes, at the height of our revelries, when our joy is at its zenith, when all is most right with the world, the most unthinkable disasters descend upon us.” 

The “zenith of joy,” or close to it, was spending t

Essay: 400 Silent Years

To get into our study of Matthew, I did a deep dive into the "400 Silent Years," the centuries between Malachi and Jesus.  I wanted to understand the world that Jesus was born into: to know what people knew.   I hope this helps you understand the Gospel better, as you understand the world in which they took place. - DCM

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To get to the world that Jesus was born into, I need to bridge a gap between the Old Testament and New Testament, because there’s about 400 years where G

Election Day!

Well, it’s here: Election Day. I don’t have much to say, but I just want to write to you as your pastor and brother in Christ. 

An encouragement: Pray early and often!

Pray for the Lord to show favor on our country. This is the theme through both Old and New Testaments: “God, you have blessed our nation. Bless it still. We don’t really have any idea what the best path forward is, but You know the future. I am your servant.” 

And when it’s over, and winners are declared, and

It was never easy

Last Sunday we dove into 1 Corinthians 5 again, this time emphasizing the need for the entire church to take sin seriously.  Confronting sin is a critical responsibility of church leaders, but 1 Corinthians 5 reinforces that leaders’ efforts won’t work unless the whole church collaborates on the project.  

Take a look at this again.  1 Corinthians 5:9-11:

“I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of t

The Way It Works

Last Sunday I introduced the Greek word that, in English, looks like “astheneia.”  It’s often translated simply as “weakness,” but you don’t need a Greek dictionary to see that there’s more to it than that.  Just in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, the word comes up three times with a different nuance each time:

1:25: “…The weakness of God is stronger than men.”  We wouldn’t say that God has a weakness; but He does govern His power.

1:27: “God chose what is weak in the world to shame

God and Gods

When helping people read the Bible, I push hard for us to try to understand the text from the point of view of the original author and original readers.   This is not easy: it requires both knowing a little about ancient cultures and being willing to push out what we know now.  No matter where I travel in the world, my basic understandings of how things are and how they should be, of what people’s priorities and expectations are, were developed in late-twentieth century N

Who is a Prophet?

The prophet’s basic job was to speak the word that the LORD gave to him.  He was a “forth-teller,” someone who spoke the truth about what God told him, and about what he saw.  Sometimes that meant “fore-telling,” or telling the future; other times it meant reproving God’s people about their sin; prophets are often seen interceding with God on behalf of God’s people; they also, sometimes, acted out their prophecy; the job even, occasionally, meant going to someone – especi