"Someone once asked Yogi Berra, "Who was the greatest baseball player who ever lived?"Yogi Berra said, "Well, there was Babe Ruth, then nobody, and then a lot of guys tied for third."A lot of people characterize Jesus that way "the greatest, the best, far and away head and shoulders above all other religious figures.Now the last thing that Israel expected was some messiah...

"God of Wonders" Did you know that if you hold a dime at arm's length against the night sky, behind that dime are around 15 million stars?And, if you could see out that far, that all those stars are within our Milky Way galaxy?The sun is 93 million miles away.There is a giant star, Antares, so big that if Antares were where our sun is, right now we would b...

From the Pastor "The Shepherd's Psalm" Of the 150 psalms in the Bible, 73 of them are attributed to David, and there is probably none more famous than that of Psalm 23.Now for many people Psalm 23 is associated with funerals. The 23rdPsalm is to funerals what I Corinthians 13 is to weddings.When a couple stands at the front of the church, we expect to hea...

From the Pastor In the book, "Leaping Over a Wall,"by Eugene Peterson, he describes David's early life as his "rising years" and his later life as his "reigning years."His rising years and his reigning years seem to have the same trajectory.Our younger years are like when we're getting our education, jumping through hoops, and wannabes in our professions.W...

From the Pastor "Be the Presence" The presence of God is often evident by tangible means. God refuses to be reduced to an abstraction or analyzed as a mere thought or idea. To speak of God's presence is to speak of something real, not imagined.In the Old Testament, this presence is primarily associated with the Ark of the Covenant.David instructed the peo...

From the Pastor I don't think anybody ever needed the doctrine of assurance as much as Larry the Sad Boy, one of the inhabitants of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon:"Larry the Sad boy was saved twelve times in the Lutheran church, an all-time record.Between 1953 and 1961, he threw himself weeping and contrite on God's throne of grace on twelve separate occa...

From the Pastor "A Space for Grace" As I write this, I am vacationing in North Carolina at Atlantic Beach.It has been a fun week so far connecting with friends, enjoying the sun and sand, eating good seafood, and playing some tennis.The other reward of this vacation has been that of rest.Have you ever wondered exactly how popular Starbucks coffee has gotten to be?Scien...

From the Pastor When a twenty-year-old Anne Sullivan arrived in Tuscumbia, Alabama, to tutor a blind and deaf seven-year-old Helen Keller, she was signing on for a big challengethat changed her life.At the time, Helen Keller could only make guttural animal sounds and would fall into destructive rages.Anne Sullivan tried and tried to break into the consciousn...

From the Pastor David is one of those people in the Bible that as we get to know him, -- we get to know God.And what isrefreshing to read is that God lived in David, even though David was far from perfect.He was a flawed, fallible human being.David was a warrior, king, and poet, along with an adulterer and a murderer.In fact, we probably know more about David and the deta...

From the Pastor An on-the-street interview with 20 somethings revealed some things recently. The question was posed, "What do you think of Jesus?The answers that came back were, "Wise teacher.""Cool.""Great.""Friend of the poor.""Awesome."The next question was, "What do you think of the church?"The answers that came back were less flattering."Bigoted.""Phony.""Oppressive....