34 years ago, on Father’s Day, our son Jon was born. I said at the time was the greatest Father’s Day gift I could ever receive. That's still true! Jon has grown to be a fine young man, married, with a great career, a great wife, and woodworking skills that definitely didn’t come from me. He has a positive and cheerful attitude that makes me smile every time that I see him. All of our children have been blessings. I’m proud of Jon, Nick, and Alisha as they’ve grown up, married, bought homes, and picked careers that suit their unique interests and skills. They all let me know how much they love ..read more

I saw a couple of Toms strutting while I was leaving one of my favorite morel mushroom hunting spots. When I'm mushroom hunting and without a gun, I often see turkey, and I also find lots of mushrooms! When I'm turkey hunting without my mushroom bags, I often see mushrooms (but no turkeys!). As I've gotten older, I spend more time mushroom hunting and less time turkey hunting but the one thing that I find whenever I'm out in the world is the amazing works of God's creation. This year while in the woods looking for those elusive morels, I found a Blue Racer snake (fast!), several box turtles ..read more

Angie and I celebrated 40 years of marriage this past summer! We've been blessed to have a wonderful marriage, awesome children who have grown up into amazing adults, and now we have a couple of fabulous grandchildren. There were definitely moments when Angie and I went through patches where one of us wasn’t sure we’d make it another year. Yet we worked through the pains, celebrated the joys, and quietly trained one another to make our marriage more successful. Mostly that means that Angie has been training me for 40 years and I didn’t even realize for the first 25! great example is that I re ..read more

Everywhere you turn there’s a new report, survey, poll, or article saying that churches in America are shrinking, fewer people are going to church, less people claim to be Christians, more people are saying they don’t even believe in God. The news is depressing! There are a lot of reasons why that has happened, but the most basic reason is that our nation didn’t make church a priority for our children in the 80s, 90s, and 2000s. Our children didn’t grow up learning the beautiful standard hymns, practicing spiritual activities like communion, group prayer, community service, and reading the Bi ..read more

Jesus broke bread with all sorts of people throughout his life: with sinners, with the self-righteous, with hungry crowds, and, most often, with his disciples. The travelers on the Road to Emmaus recognized Jesus as they broke bread together at the end of their journey. When the first Christians gathered on the Lord’s Day to share in a meal of Christ’s remembrance, they spoke of it as “the breaking of the bread.” The First Christians met weekly in their home church, literally a church in someone's home, to worship and to share a meal with one another. They recognized the importance of the Las ..read more

Religious tradition names the three "Magi of Bethlehem" as Balthasar of Arabia, Melchior of Persia, and Gaspar of India. Magi comes from the ancient Latin “magus” and ancient Greek “magos” which comes from ancient Persian meaning priestly class of Zoroastrianism. The ancient Persian term would have related to someone who practiced Zoroastrianism and attempted to read the stars to make sense of current events or to tell the future. The Magi from Matthew were elevated to kings by the Catholic religion probably around 500 BC because it was assumed only kings could afford to give such lavish gifts ..read more

Sign up your children ages 3-12 for Weekend VBS! This is a free event that goes Friday evening, Saturday morning, and Sunday morning. Sign up here: https://forms.gle/iBUWFT8jKoGDErkr8 Your children will have a great time playing games, eating snacks, and learning about God and Jesus Christ! We look forward to seeing you and your children next weekend ..read more

One of our members asked the church to take on a special community service project a few years ago called "Small Mall." We open our doors so families can bring their children to shop for Christmas presents to give to their family members. Each child is chaperoned by an elf who helps them pick out free gifts based upon the list they bring to our Small Mall. Once all the gifts are selected, they take to them to a table where more Christmas elves lovingly wrap, label, and bag their gifts. You can see from a few of the pictures below of happy children & elves. We have over 100 children come ..read more

We invited everyone from both sides of our family to our home for Thanksgiving and 32 people showed up – less than ½ of the total that could have come but we were thrilled to see those who came! We saw great-nieces and nephews that we’ve not seen since they were toddlers who are now in high school and college. We reconnected with a great-nephew who is now in his late 20's and learned he lives a few short miles from us. Ages ranged from a young children running around the house to my brother and his wife who are a few years older than me to my mother-in-law who is in her 80’s. We also had a ni ..read more

One day last year I walked into my office and found a beautiful cross with a note from from one of our members that said: “Steve, I found this while thrift store shopping. The beauty of the wood and the words on the bottom made me want to buy it. My Dad used to make me things from wood. Maybe you can use it sometime.” The cross was similar to the one in this picture except that it was standing and the base and cross were all carved from one piece of wood. What a wonderful gift! I appreciate the thoughtfulness of picking the gift and the words she wrote. Isn’t it great when someone weaves thei ..read more