In the previous blog, we noted that while it is easy to give lip service to the Great Commission as the mission of the local church, it is also easy to get distracted from it.

Let me begin by saying I am young in the pastorate, and some would quickly point out that I have no business attempting to share counsel about music in the church. I am somewhat of an enigma because I am soon to be fifty years old, but I have only been a pastor for less than seven years. So I am an older guy with very little experience in the pastorate! My goal is to be biblical in these thoughts!

he Great Commission of Christ is to share the gospel and make disciples. Sometimes I paraphrase it, “go, win, baptize, teach.”

On June 17, 2018, Harvest Baptist Temple of Medford, OR, celebrated forty-one years of ministry. It was also the day that the founding pastor, Dr. Bob Gass, entrusted the heritage and history of that ministry to me.

According to statistics from 2018, Americans owe 26 percent of their income to consumer debt with the average American spending 10 percent of his or her monthly income on non-mortgage debts. And although average income is increasing, American consumers are buying more and increasing their debt.

Thanksgiving Day, made a national holiday in 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln celebrates the feast the Pilgrims held after their first successful corn harvest in 1621. What many Americans fail to remember is that Thanksgiving is not just about being thankful—it’s about being thankful to the one true God.

I love Thanksgiving for many reasons, but perhaps the greatest is that it helps us schedule a day to do what we should be doing every day of the year—give thanks.

You might call me stingy, but I prefer to think of myself as thrifty. Either way, I’m all about saving pennies where I can… which is exactly what I did some years ago when I salvaged several small pumpkins from being tossed.

It would seem that a ministry devoted to helping preachers would not need to talk to them about having a time of daily devotions and a regular schedule to read the Bible. Unfortunately, my sad experience through the years has taught me otherwise.

The results of an election can reveal the character and heart of a people. And this most recent election, at least in the state of California, didn’t reveal a heart for God or loyalty to Christian values.