A Pastor's Thoughts

Over Memorial Day weekend, my wife and I went to the north coast of Washington State, the northern most border of America. The weather was sunny. Cold at night and sunny during the day. Even in May, the days were long with many more hours of sunlight than down in the San Francisco Bay Area. We wanted to visit cousins and see their new place. It was a great time away and a wonderful time of seeing new things. I had never been that far north while still in the lower 48 states. I was stationed in Alaska in the Air Force, so that is the farthest north I have been Vacation is good and a vacation where I get away from everything I know is better. This was a good vacation because it was in a new town with people I know and love. It was good because I knew people could and would handle the business of the church while I was away. A had a good filling and appreciate Kreig Sartin for preaching and Village Baptist for lending him to us. Vacation is usually about escape. The busine...

This week I have been rereading Hyrum Smith's book "The 10 Natural Laws of Productivity and Happiness." This book was written in the late 1980s and I remember reading it for the first time when I was working at Seagate Technologies, after my time in the Air Force. The core tool talked about in the book is the Franklin Day Planner . I remembering having one such planner, long before smart phones and Palm devices. Mine was a leather bound loose-leaf binder with calendar and note pages in it. I kept my daily tasks list and appointments in that binder, which became a record of my work history at Seagate and beyond. The Day Planner binders, pages and supplies were sold at a store called Franklin Quest , which was located at Valco Mall in Sunnyvale. At that time, I was a computer programmer. I was able to keep a record of all request for software, who made the request and when and what the requirements were. It seemed that I was the only one keeping a record of this b...

Today I received a call from a person wanting rental assistance. Apparently they got kicked out of their place of residence and having found a room to rent, they just needed someone to pay for it. I am not sure how this person got our phone number. We are listed in the phone book and our phone number is on our marquee. However they found us they had the idea that a church, any church, our church should pay for their rent. This is a very strange notion. I come in contact with many people, many who call and some who come and knock on the door of the church. These people do not attend our church and they give no evidence that they even believe in the same things we do. There is no relationship between these beggars and our church, yet there is the assumption that our church, or any church is just handing out cash to anyone who asks. This is what is strange. Why would any organization spend all their money on people who do not participate, attend or believe like us. Some mig...

Music is everywhere. It is part of every movie and TV show. It is played in cars and on phones. Everyday millions of people walk around with earphones of some sort or another most likely listening to music. Music, in that case, has become a private, almost intimate event. Concerts on the other had are a shared and community event. Churches of all sorts know the value of music as a form of worship and a means to get people’s spirit aligned with the events of church. When I was much younger, there was a TV commercial where a man goes into a diner and finds a jukebox. He asks the proprietor what songs are on the jukebox. The owner of the diner says “all of them.” I forget what this was advertising. Most likely some magnetic storage medium or cassette management system. Today we have Spotify and Apple Music as the two top contenders for your music dollar. They are as close as we have come to that jukebox. Someone can look into Spotify and ask “what music do they have” and ...

From time immemorial people have sold things they owned, transferring ownership. People have also rented what they owned, allowing someone else to use it for a time, for a price. Today people rent cars and apartments and TVs and all sorts of things. Businesses have come into existence with the sole purpose of renting items to people. Some places, as the name indicates, will allow you to rent-to-own. Subscriptions are different than owning or renting. If you subscribe to a magazine, you get this weeks copy and you own it, but if you want next weeks copy, you have to buy that also. A regularly scheduled payment for ongoing delivery of something is called a subscription. People subscribe to magazines and newspapers, which are a physical thing they can own. People also subscribe to cable TV which is paying for access. If a person stops paying, the access to the TV channels go away. This is called a subscription because it is a regularly scheduled payment for access, even thoug...

I have noticed a trend among shoppers that really slows down the checkout process. This is what I have observed. I was at Walmart the other day, but I have seen this at many grocery stores as well. This person had a cart full of clothes and food. Items were being rung up and placed in the plastic bags in the bag-go-round device. When the clerk was all done running up the items, she announced to the purchaser that the total was $275 and change. At that moment, the woman buying the items, took her duffle-bag style purse off her shoulder and began searching for a payment method. She was pulling out loose $20 after loose $20 and when she was done handing cash over to the clerk, the clerk said that she was $45.00 short. The woman then took all the cash back and threw it into her purse and began rummaging around and came up with a credit or debit card. She inserted it in the chip reader and pulled it out too soon, so she had to place it in again and it finally worked, she was charg...

“Don’t Fear the Reaper” opening guitar riff, woke me up at 12:12am today. That is the unique ringtone I have created for the alarm company that monitors our church. I want to hear it when the alarm company calls, and I want it to be jarring , which it is.  There are sensors on the the doors and motion sensors in the building and something set them off at 12:12 this morning. I set all my devices to “Do Not Disturb” but Apple allows favorites to break through and be heard. With IOS 10, I believe, Apple added “Emergency Bypass” as an option. Even if the volume is down, and sound is off and “Do Not Disturb” is on, you can set Emergency Bypass, to always break through. A few select relatives and the alarm company are set with Emergency Bypass on so they will always get through. We got the alarm system in the the church several years ago, when a homeless man made his way into the church and took up residence on the third floor. We had to call the police when we heard a radio...

Today I preached on John 19:14-16 which is the final exchange between Pilate and Jesus, Pilate and the Jews and the High Priests and Pilate. Pilate in a clear effort to release Jesus again, brings the bloody and battered , mocked and crowned Jesus, barely recognizable, and says “Behold your king.” The Jewish mob respond by telling Pilate to crucify Jesus and Pilate retorts, “You would crucify your king?” Then the Chief Priests, who were the cardinals of ancient Israel, shout out, “We have no king but Caesar.” That is enough for Pilate and Jesus is led down the Via Delarosa to Golgotha and nailed to a cross, he dies. Annas and Caiaphas were in a tough position. The Law found in the book of Leviticus states that a High Priest would serve for life. The Romans did not like that so they made them change every year. Therefore Caiaphas and his father-in-law Annas alternated. Their second in command, usually blood relatives would could step in if the High Priest was incapacitated, w...