Coming This Sunday (Page 2)

When we go to the annual state fair (which just occurred this month) many of us like to pretend we are farmers or ranchers. As we go and visit the horse barn at the fair or go to the rodeo arena, we love to watch the riders and pretend to know the differences between horse breeds. When we take our kids to the pig barn and watch the momma pig with 13 little piglets, we pretend to know all about…

I was never really much of a baseball player, but I know that if I were I would hate the pressure of being the 3rd out when your team was up to bat. For most of you I likely don’t need to explain the basics of how a baseball game is played; how that your team is only allowed three outs in each of the 9 innings. But in the little that I personally played baseball (football was my game!)…

I have been blessed with the opportunity to see some amazing places in the world. Out of all the unique places I’ve seen and experienced in the world such as the North Slope Brooks range of Alaska, the Grand Canyon, the summit of Mt Rainier to name a few, the starkest place I’ve been to was the North African Desert in Egypt!  It was on one of our many trips to Russia that we chose to do an inexpensive detour…

We have officially begun our academic year teaching out of the Gospel of Mark. Last Sunday Alvin laid out a bit of an overview and some background to better get a grasp of this book. It is of course the 2nd of the four Gospels that we find in the Bible. It is often the least read of the four as well. But we are jumping in and I can’t wait. This Sunday I have the privilege of focusing on…

To those few among you who still write old-fashioned paper letters, how do you begin? Will you begin with a salutation or greeting? Will you ask about their health? Will you follow with a little chit-chat, or small talk? Will you complain about the economy or the Mariners? Well, the Gospel of Mark doesn’t do any of those things (I know, I know, it is not really a letter). The writer of Mark offers no pleasantries. He wastes no time.…

If you’ve been around awhile you might recall that frequently have told the story of how I came to memorize Proverbs 3:5-6. As I was pledging a college fraternity at Baylor in 1976 one of the members of the fraternity was a Christian and forced me to memorize this verse before he would vote for me to be in the club! It might seem strange to you and not match your view of fraternity life, but I will tell you…

This coming Sunday morning August 18 I am honored to have a relatively new friend with us, Brad Schneeflock. Brad is relatively new to the Northwest as he moved here with his family over a year ago from Arizona to lead a collegiate outreach ministry in the Puget Sound Region. He led a great collegiate ministry outreach in Arizona for years, but now brings his expertise and experience to our area.  This is of special interest to us at LifeWay…

The top of this article is from me (Billy) and the 2nd half is from Scott Jackson. This Sunday, August 4, we are honored to have our own Scott Jackson bring us a message in our summer series we call… “The Promises of God.” Scott and Diane serve in Eastern Europe and have been workers on the international field now for over 14 years. And LifeWay is their home church (and of course Diane is our daughter!! — and sweet…

A few years back Patty & I met a family while on vacation. As is common with my wife and I we began to enter into a conversation with them as we are often intrigued by people’s stories. Not only where they had been on vacation, but what they’ve seen and what interesting places they have visited. At some point the conversation turned a bit more personal and we began to ask talk about family things. We were certainly not…

Are you sick and tired of being sick and tired?  Have you ever wondered what Jesus is referring to when he promises us Rest in Matthew 11?  He says “Come to Me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”    Are you weary?  Are the burdens of life weighing you down?  I have to admit that I feel that pressure sometimes – ok, really a lot of times.  There are pressures of work,…

This past Sunday, the LifeWay family honored Billy and Patty for their 40 years of service to God. Sometime this month, or last month, forty years ago, when God called them to plant a church here in the Pacific Northwest, they said yes. I thank God for how hard and how focused they have worked to bring hope to many Washingtonians living in darkness. Tradition says that the prophet, Jeremiah, served God for forty years too (I am not at…

Last weekend several of us as church leaders took a group of wonderful teens to camp in a remote part of Washington, a ranching/logging/mining part of the state called Wauconda. As part of our “Camp Wauconda” long weekend experience we joined in worship at the Wauconda Community Church. It was delightful. We met some wonderful Christ followers, and even a couple of the families joined us in the afternoon for a picnic at the nearby lake. You might wonder what…

Officially welcome to summer and the longest days of the year!  I love it! But it means for us at LifeWay a shift in what we will be teaching on Sunday’s during the summer. Of course we just went through 30+ Sunday’s in Romans from September to last Sunday. Beginning this Sunday, June 23, we will begin our summer series called… “The Promises of God.” Every Sunday from June 23 to Labor Day, (11 Sunday’s), we will focus on a…

This time of year is graduation speech time. There are some fun graduation speeches, some ‘boring and lame’ speeches for sure, but occasionally there are some amazing graduation speeches to challenge and charge graduates. But I think the best speeches are the farewell speeches because they are the ones that lay out the most critical things to live for. Dwight Eisenhower gave a great one when leaving the presidency. George Washington gave a great speech when he left office. Paul,…

2000 years ago the Roman Empire dominated everything that was Europe, North Africa and the fringes of western Asia. This Empire was unlike anything that the world had ever seen, and in some ways it has not seen anything like it sense. It amazes me that we have been studying this incredible New Testament letter that we casually call the “Book of Romans,” and it was to a Church family there in that was living out the Body of Christ…

One of the most popular and repeated phrases of a young child when they become around 5 years old is….. “WHY?”  When you tell a child to stop playing on the high bars of the playground, their response is… “Why?”  When you tell them to stop being so loud when you are a restaurant, their response is… “Why?”  When you tell them to eat all their vegetables instead of the ice cream, their response is… “Why?” Even as a teenager…

Once upon a time inside the church in Rome in the 1st century, there were the Jewish Christians and there were the Gentile Christians. The Jewish Christians were those who were ethnically Jews, but they had come to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. On the other hand, the Gentile Christians were non-Jewish, albeit also people of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who used to be people from all kinds of beliefs, and religious systems. We learn from…

There is a bit of common bit of advice that is passed around every year at Thanksgiving time. Now I realize that it is May and we are all ready for summer, but let’s think about what happens at Thanksgiving time for many of us. It is a season when we gather with family that often we have not seen each other for some time, so we do a lot of catching up with one another. There are many topics…

Romans 12:9-21 Recently Patty and I took off some time to celebrate her birthday by going to the beautiful state of Hawaii. Of course we had a grand and beautiful time on that gorgeous Big Island. We swam a lot, snorkeled the corral coves, hiked many of the hills, and we shopped!  One of the days we took a long hike that began about 1000 feet above sea level and proceeded down the lava flow areas all the way down…

Romans 12:1-8 We are now on what I have categorized as the last section of the book of Romans. This whole year we have studied Romans and Our Calling this series the gospel truth. The theology of what the gospel is in full detail is so well explained in the 1st 11 chapters of the book of Romans. But around the 12th chapter of this amazing letter in our New Testament we begin this section which is often considered to…

In January 1925, Nome Alaska was very, very cold! Now this should be of no surprise to anyone as Nome is that little Arctic town that sits out near the Bering Sea and essentially looks across to the far East tip of Russia. It is a native Alaskan settlement that expanded a great deal in the early 20th century due to the gold rush and other economic reasons. But a crisis had emerged in this Arctic village. And it is…

Quite soon after I made a decision for Christ, a pastor friend told me about a debate going around in the Christian world called the Arminian versus Calvinist debate. I don’t want to go too deep doctrinally here, but the Arminian position emphasizes free will, believing that individuals have the choice to accept or reject God’s salvation. On the other hand, the Calvinist position emphasizes God’s sovereignty, believing that God predestines certain individuals for salvation. The way my friend said…

When Apollo 8 was launched in December 1968 it was the very first ever manned flight to reach the moon and they orbited the moon on that mission.  They did not land on the moon (that was Apollo 11 in July 1969). But it was the first ever to have flown out of earth’s low orbit and circle the moon, which they did 10 times and were within 60 miles of its surface! This mission set the stage for the…

When the Seattle Seahawks have their season opener this coming September at Lumen Field, everyone in the downtown region will know there is a game about to happen because the Seahawk blue jerseys, shirts, hats, and even face paint will be everywhere! The shouts from the crowds of thousands of people who were all strangers to one another just an hour before, are now all yelling in unison — “SEA —- HAWKS!”  They are all high fiving one another and…

About ten years ago Patty was asked to paint about 25 portraits of famous people who would be considered ‘peace makers’ in the world. Individuals who stand out as people who brought something better for a nation and the world. She was asked to do this by a missionary who served in a difficult place in Asia to be put into a coffee shop there. It was actually called the “Peace Café.” The intent was to foster conversations among the…