Over the years my wife and I have had the pleasure of meeting allot of great people and making friendships that we know will last a lifetime.

I’ve never been afraid of speaking with people, but one time at Liberty University,  we were having a pastors conference, and I was standing at a table with music CD’s and lo and behold I found myself standing next to one of the all time greatest gospel singers of all time, and I stood there speechless.  I wanted to say hello to Doug Oldham,  but  all my tongue could do was whimper in silence!!

Every once in awhile one might meet well known people in ministry,  but the ones that impress your heart, are the ones in your congregations that truly love the Lord.

People like Aud Boeve who has been my spiritual father and who has imparted many hours of wisdom into my hard head,  or Bill Graham, Tina, Eudora, Jerald & Margarete,  Cliff and June, Bob and Tammy,  and a host of other people too many to name.

We’ve also buried great friends like Glen VanHarn, only in his 20′s but like a brother to Sal and I,  he’s one that broke our hearts to see him go,  but so thankful we had the privilege to watch him grow in Christ.

Its easy to keep friendships when your with your congregation on a daily basis,  but when you leave a church,  it becomes difficult because life gets busy as we all know, and at times almost impossible to keep in contact with so many. My blog is an attempt to keep in contact with all of you and to let you know whats going on in our lives. So tell everyone about this blog and tell them to leave a comment so I know whose out there!!

I’ve had the privilege to preach three times this month, and it was great, the folks in our little church are so welcoming and easy to speak to.  Their not looking for things to do battle with me over,  they desire to hear Gods word and its been refreshment to my heart.

In every church, there are those who are there for their own glory and power, its in every church, and many crowns and rewards that could have been won, will be lost, because they got their rewards here and lost out on heavens!

But regardless, if we hadn’t moved to a few different churches, there are people that we would have never had the pleasure in meeting and being a part of their lives, if only for a short time.

In our first church there was Walt, who has passed away,  he use to smoke his cigar in front of the church, I asked him to please not do that.  So the next Sunday, as I looked out my office window, who did I see,  Yep, Walt smoking,  but he was behind the church!!!   it was hilarious.  Walt was a great guy.

It was people like that who made ministry, not only interesting,  and challenging,  but fun.

In our second church,  we had a lady who would start telling a story, with a straight face,  and by the time she was done, I was ready to roll on the floor.  She should have been a comedian.

In our third church in West Branch,  this is the church that should have worked for us,  if I had been spiritually prepared for battle, but I wasn’t,  and we lost the battle.   Liberal and hard hearts will kill a pastor and it did me.

But there were great people there also,  there always seems to be many innocent lambs in the mist of wolves and they aren’t even aware of the danger.

IN every church we pastored,  we made friends, we met those who truly loved the Lord.

My wifes grandmother once told me that if you go to church and look at the people, you’ll never go back.

It took me a long time to understand what she meant,  but what a wise woman.  We go to church, to praise God, we go to church to serve Jesus Christ,  we go to church to learn how to spread the gospel,  we go to church to be blessed by our bothers and sisters in Christ, those who truly love the Lord and who want to love their brethren and not bring harm to them.

If you go to church don’t look for the wolves, their there.  Go to serve the Lord and his people.  But if your in a place where the wolves out number the sheep,  get out,  get out now, and get to a church that loves Jesus Christ.

You don’t have to be a pastor to serve God,  you have to be born again and do whatever God leads you to do.

Go to church and become friends, don’t look to shoot the pastor or get a high out of being in power,  your nothing even if you think your something,  some day we will all bow before the throne of God,  equally.  You might as well learn to be humble now.