Last week a team from Harrisburg Baptist Church in Tupelo, Mississippi traveled to the mountains of Ecuador for a medical missions trip. They stayed at a hotel located at 7000 feet above sea level, and during they day they ran a free clinic for a village at 10,500 feet. Several area doctors and nurses went on the trip along …
Last night we had dinner with Mark and Vanessa and Parker, their nine-month-old Maltese they brought with them from California. After the meal Mark pointed out that this was their one-month anniversary. Since getting married on July 28, they have been to Puerto Vallarta for their honeymoon, back to California for a few days …
The current issue of Vanity Fair carries a report by Christopher Hitchens on his book tour to promote his mega-bestseller God Is Not Great. As always, Hitchens has many provocative things to say, and those who are enjoy his sometimes acerbic comments on various religious leaders will not be disappointed. I found it fascinat …
Over the weekend we received this email from a volunter chaplain in Texas:I am a volunteer Chaplain at the Henley State Jail in Dayton, Texas. We house approximately 550 women. We received a box of your books, An Anchor for the Soul”, a while back and our ladies have been requesting it constantly. We are totally out and we …
On Friday night, after I finished my final message on the life of Samson at Cannon Beach, a man came up and made what I thought was a profound observation. He said that Samson’s story fascinated him because it doesn’t fit neatly into our man-made categories. “When I read about a Bible character, I tend to put hi …
This week at Cannon Beach we enjoyed the ministry of an a cappella group from the Portland area called Rescue. These four young men (plus a sound guy) can really sing.Amazing would not be overstating it. They did hymns, contemporary songs, plus they did a number of their own compositions (including one based solely on the w …
We have just posted a new sermon called I’m Coming to Rome Someday, I Hope. Here’s an excerpt:Although Paul clearly states his great desire to visit the church at Rome, he cannot say when he will make the journey because he isn’t sure himself. Paul lays out his general priorities, explains his immediate pl …
This week at Cannon Beach our worship leader was Mark Rice, pastor of a church in Kingman, Arizona. With the assistance of his son Reggie (a pastor in Sedona, Arizona) on the guitar and with the gifted Jan Klerekoper on the piano, we have had wonderful times of worship. One day Mark taught us to do Alphabet Praise. He said …
Before every evening service this week at Cannon Beach, the platform personnel meet for a brief prayer meeting in a little room at the back of the chapel. Each night I’ve noticed a saying tacked on the door where you can’t miss it:The Opposite of Faith is Control.I have been thinking about that all week long, an …
Years ago, during a Thanksgiving service, I heard a man stand up and give thanks for the “wife of my youth.” With tears in his eyes, he gave thanks to God for the wife he had married as a young man. Now he was middle-aged, and he was still thankful for her. And he prayed that God would allow them to grow old together.This i …