Rick Nier...Woo!

This is the next in a series of lessons I am sharing with our preschool kids at church. I love telling stories about Jesus.  I have a question that is just for the girls. Ladies, have you ever thought that boys just kind of smell funny? Now I have a question for the boys. Boys, don’t you think girls are just kind of weird? Well, it is true that boys and girls are different from one another. But can boys and girls still be friends and play together? I think they can. I have another story about Jesus to share with you and this one involves a cup of water. Jesus and His friends were travelling from Judea to Galilee. But they didn't have cars back then. And most people didn't have horses to ride on. No bikes or skates either. So when they went somewhere, they had to walk. To get from Judea to Galilee would take 2 & ½ days. Can you imagine walking for 2 & ½ days? (I think Jesus leading the disciples around would have been similar to a teacher leading a clas...

Before I go any further, I have to clear one item up. One might assume that any person reading a book titled When Will My Life Not Suck must, in fact, believe that their life currently inhales with great force. I assure you, this is not the case. I am very much like a middle school boy and I was drawn to the book because of its blatant use of a word I tend to avoid. What can I say, the immature tendencies still rise up within me. This book by Ramon Presson has a subtitle; Authentic Hope for the Disillusioned. Nope, I don't feel like I have a bitter taste in my mouth towards life either. Though we should not judge a book by its' cover, I do often find myself sucked in (pun intended) by a title. I am glad I did. Ramon is a counselor by trade and he has plenty of experience dealing with people who, to be sure, have told him how much their life just isn't what they had hoped for. He believes a perspective shift is required. Using the book of Philippians, Ramon takes us on a jou...

God says He is not willing that any should perish. (See Matthew 18:14.) Meanwhile we argue over who makes it or not.  You tell me who's thinking with their heart? Let me say right from the start that this isn't about inclusion. I don't know whether to thank my generation, my parents, my pastors or my God-given brain, but I live in a world of absolutes. There is truth. There is black and white. Words have definitions, no matter how uneasy I may be with any of them.  Politicians, musicians, actors and reality shows can say whatever they want to fit their own personal agendas, but I was raised in the belief that God is God and it's okay that I don't always understand Him. In fact, why would I want to change my life around someone who I perfectly understand. (My wife would be another great example. I mean that in a good way.) I make it my goal to know God as much as I can. I want to achieve a closer relationship with Him than I have today. That means ...

I was recently given a review copy of Stuff You Should Know About Stuff: How to Properly Behave in Certain Situations . I was selected to be part of the launch team by my friends Tripp and Tyler, though referring to people I've never met as friends is one of the things I learned not to do while reading their book. I guess application comes next. Nevertheless, Tripp and Tyler have come up with what I would call the Seinfeld  series of books. They are saying future anthropologists will call it the Rosetta Stone of how to handle the mundane in life. They might be right. It's a comical look at how people behave everywhere from bathrooms to airplanes, though I might have missed any comments about airplane bathrooms. Mostly clean, I might have shared this with my children, except for the unnecessary foul language which cropped up randomly and meaninglessly. (Seriously, I feel like a broken record when it comes to this issue in books.) Sometimes mean, mostly sarcastic, I would...

What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us. ~Romans 8:31-34 In my opinion, this is one of the most powerful scriptures that we seldom take to heart. That's right. There are many great truths in the Bible. Many we ignore, others we choose not to obey and some we don't yet understand. But Romans 8:31-34 is simple for us to comprehend, something we've likely heard in a worship setting (probably before a power anthem), and not difficult to obey. Yet we don't live out the implications of this truth. Who is he that accuses? You...

My teenager hates math. Don't get me wrong, she's smart and can handle the honors level class she's in, most days. After all, I'm not raisin' no dummies! But there are days when she comes home with lots of math homework. Not just lots, but difficult stuff with equations and letters. It's stuff I haven't used since...well...since I was in these math classes. To top it all off, we usually get the most homework when our family has other plans. How do the teachers know? Without fail, my daughter will say what everyone besides scientists and engineers have always said. 'I'll never need this stuff in the real world!' It is hard to justify algebra for keeping your checkbook balanced. Though I have started telling her she has to go to bed at x = 2(1+1) + (10-5). Solve for x and get around for bed, sweetheart! But the fact is she doesn't yet know what she'll need for her future career. Sure, she doesn't think NASA will be in her f...

I am teaching a series on prayer to my youth group this month. Here's part of what I said to them. I want you to know God even better than I know my wife.  Let me tell you what happened the other night. She had a phone call the other day that didn't go well. Once she gave me some details of what happened, I told her why she was upset.  That sounds weird, like why didn't I let her just talk? Seriously Pastor, you don't get enough time to talk? Now you tell other people what they're thinking and feeling? Do you have any useful superpowers? I wanted her to know how much I understood her. After 18 years of marriage, I wanted her to get that when there is no one else in this world who gets her, I get her. I understand.  Whether or not I actually received any awesome husband points, I don't know. Not that I'm worried about that kind of thing. Having someone who you know understands is important. On top of that, having someone you know cares ...

This is the next part of a series of lessons I'm doing with preschoolers. For this one, I showed them an old phone. When you hear 'old phone', you might assume I mean the original iPhone. But no, this bad boy had a cord, something which used to be the norm. They looked at me as if I was from another world. ~Does it have any apps? No. ~Does it have any games? No. ~Can it talk to you like my mom's phone? No, but my mom used phones like this. How many of you have seen a phone that was attached to a wall? When I was a kid, all of our phones were attached to walls. They had cords that kept them in place. If you wanted to use a phone, you had to stay in one place. When I wanted to talk to my friends, I would have to stay in one place as I talked to them. In the Bible, we read stories of Jesus ‘calling’ His friends. Do you think He used a phone? Nope. They didn't even have phones back then. Maybe Jesus had to use two cans and some string? Nope. When it says Jesus ‘c...

Luke 8:40-56 They  knew  she was dead. They  knew  it! There was this guy that lived a long time ago. He did things. He did amazing things. And he spoke truth. But the truth was so amazing, people had a hard time believing it. They didn't accept it, or didn't want to accept it.  But he would do these amazing things anyway. He would do them for free. So word began to spread and people began to call him for help, hoping he would do something amazing for them.  One such time these parents had a young girl who was dying, so they called this guy. He agreed to come, but as you might imagine, people who can do amazing things often get stopped and distracted by other people who need amazing things done.  And that happened. He got stopped. By another woman who was in need. She'd been bleeding. Actually she'd been bleeding for a long time. This was in a day and age before reliable healthcare. It was also a day before health insurance. (You c...