Every summer we get the opportunity to take the Youth Group on a summer retreat. This trip is normally just a few days where we try to get out of town and get the kids out of their normal routine. As Tim and I prepared content and schedule for the retreat there was a unique time that arose in the schedule. This time was a pre-breakfast devotional time that we made optional as it did entail having ...  Read More

The year was 538 B.C. Two Jews, Zechariah and Zerubbabel, had just returned to Jerusalem from Babylon with a group of other exiles. Their enthusiasm was high, for they had finally been able to come back to their homeland to rebuild the city, restore the temple, and make a fresh start at life. However, twenty years later, after many trials and setbacks, work was slow, morale was down, and the overa...  Read More

In his book The Emotionally Healthy Leader Pete Scazzero offers some helpful questions to ask in order to diagnose our struggle to stop working/producing in order to rest. I have listed them below: 1. Do you get more excited about your work than about family or anything else?2. Do you take work with you to bed? On weekends? On vacation?3. Is work the activity you like to do best and talk about mos...  Read More

At the end of Exodus 34 Moses is described as shining after coming down from meeting with the Lord. In fact, this seemingly unnerves the Israelites, to the point that he covers his face with a veil. In 2 Corinthians 3 Paul provides some further commentary on Moses and his veil. In v.13 he comments that Moses “put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was...  Read More

Jem and I recently spent the morning together. We started, of course, with breakfast at City Café, where the waitresses call you “honey” and the old guys at the big table by the window always have a new joke to tell you. From there we rode our bikes all around downtown Northport. We talked to two guys fishing down by the river, passed one of our neighbors who was also out biking, waved to people s...  Read More

When we look at God’s instructions to his people in Exodus 25-27 to construct a tabernacle in which his presence will be manifested, one of the things we are reminded of is the importance of physical place. The physical place of the tabernacle created a tangible environment for God’s people to keep him consistently before themselves. One application of this idea for us is to think about learning t...  Read More