1 Thessalonians 4:1
In my last post, I talked about this requirement that Paul teaches for "Overseers" or Elders to be "above reproach". It's a deep phrase that Paul needs to unpack with two different lists of qualities, one positive and one negative. He started with the negative qualities first - what the overseer should not be: "He …
So last week, I bought a drone for my birthday. It's something I've been wanting to get for a while. In fact I bought a little toy drone a few years ago (a Parrot drone) but it really wasn't anything good. And I was talked out of buying any bigger drones by my friends because …
When I was still in high school preparing to go to Bible School, I remember an old pastor friend of mine giving me some advice. Part of that advice was a story he had about when he himself was about to enter Bible College - before arriving, the students were asked to memorize Titus. He …
There's this trope in Japanese Anime, J-Dramas, and K-Dramas where a character is sick but tries to power through being sick, but is eventually overcome and faints. Usually this leads to the character somehow being transported to their bed and taken care of by the love interest. Sometimes the love interest actually starts off as …
Happy Friday everyone! I was originally going to write about my school for this week's blog post. But... first of all, it occurred to me that it's going to be difficult to find enough material to try to blog every week. So I'm gonna pare my updates down to maybe every other week. Second, at …
Do you have an email signature? Different people have different information in their email signatures. For me, I usually had my full name, title, and email address, along with a tag-line quote (which for the past 5 years or so has been "Make a Joyful Noise!" from Psalm 98). I really liked using email signatures, …
WOW. There are so many things that I've experienced over the past week that it's hard to keep my head focused on the purpose of this blog post: explaining what I went through to become a resident in Osakasayama City.
I didn't realize how appropriate it was to use my "official NorthLife portrait" on my little fridge magnet-prayer card thingie until just now. While that fridge magnet obviously represents my future in Japan, nevertheless, embedded right on it is a reminder of a part of my past that will continue to have affect me for …
So this happened last week. But it's been so busy this week at church/day camps that I only have the chance to post about it now. I am staying with The Fellowship. Many of my friends know that most of my training as a pastor happened at Morningstar Christian Fellowship, which is part of the …
