New Blog and Website

Please check out my new website and blog. Praying for Our Pastors is a blog that talks about topics of prayer and keeps you updated as to the progress of my upcoming book, Pit Crew: Praying for Our Pastors to Finish the Race. Here are the links:
Praying for Our Pastors Blog
Praying for Our Pastors Website

According to Pastoral Care Inc., 7,000 US churches close their doors each year. A study by Malony and Hunt in The Psychology of Clergy reported 75 percent of pastors experienced periods of major distress, while 33 percent have seriously considered quitting the ministry. This must stop!

My love for the work of my minister led me to pray consistently for him and his family. Further, I formed a small group to pray for all the pastors in my church. This group later became known as the "pit crew." My practical experience and research became a book called Becoming Our Pastors' Pit Crew: Praying for Our Pastors to Finish Victoriously. It is my prayer this book will be published soon.

Stringer Writer

Last week, I was asked by the Jasper County Citizen newspaper to help as a stringer writer. That means I will be a freelance writer for them, but not an employee of the paper. My first attempt to be published in a newspaper was an article about the churches in Carl Junction who had or will have a VBS program this summer. I thoroughly enjoyed doing the interviews and taking photos. My delight overflowed when the editor made my article the lead story in the paper and gave me three more assignments. For my second article, I interviewed a Purple Heart recipient from WWII and the Korean War. What a dear man who is now in his 80s. I hope it gets published for the Fourth of July weekend. Not for me and my publishing career, but to honor him and his service. If you have some thoughts about an interesting story about someone who lives, works, goes to school, or is in someway connected to our city please let me know. I will continually need new ideas to be able to provide more good stories for the Citizen. Good pictures can be tough. There was a lot of action at VBS which became difficult to capture. I struggled with a glare when I tried to shoot the picture of the Purple Hearts recipients medals because they were framed. I'm meeting new people and learning new things about ones I know.

Faith and Foxholes

A couple of years ago on Fourth of July weekend LIVE published my article entitled, "Faith and Foxholes." It is a practical article which suggests ways to encourage and pray for our troops. I have scanned it for you to enjoy and use.

Pray for the Entertainment World

Are you disgusted by the things you see on TV? Do you go nuts trying to find good movies for your teens? When was the last time you were enjoying a video, but a raunchy scene made you turn it off? If you are like me, I am fed up. Since complaining didn't seem to help, I decided to go on the offense and pray. Here is a prayer guide I devised to pray for the various aspects of entertainment that impact our society.

How to Pray for the World of Entertainment

TV, Radio, Movies, CD’s, Video Games

1. Ask God to give wisdom, knowledge and understanding to those in entertainment who make decisions.  Help them to not take advice from evil people.  (Proverbs 2:6; Psalm 1:1)

2. Pray that the leaders of the entertainment world will understand the power that pictures, sounds and words have for good and bad.  Make them remember that one day they will have to tell why they made their choices.  (Proverbs 18:21; Matthew 12:36)

3. Ask the Heavenly Father to give those in media eyes to see kids as You see them.  Give them a tender heart that wants to protect innocent children. (Mark 9:42)

4. Pray that producers will make programs that show Your truth.  Lead them to make things that are good, worthy of praise, true, honorable, right, pure, beautiful and excellent.  (Philippians 4:8)

5. Ask the Lord to open the eyes of Christians to keep away from bad entertainment.  Help them to make good choices in music, TV, movies and electronic games.  Help them to be self-controlled and not spend too much time on pleasure.  (Acts 26:18; Titus 2:11-12)

From Tragedy to Triumph

Today, my doorbell rang and I received a dozen copies of "From Tragedy to Triumph." It is difficult to get copies of this book, because it is part of a set called "Extraordinary Answers to Prayer" published by Guideposts. They prefer to sell you the entire set. They didn't even bother to get an ISBN number for the book. But I wanted several copies because of the story "Three Moms" inside. It recounts the failed adoption of our daughter Stephanie Joy. This had such an impact upon our family I hoped this writing would be a source of healing. So after much pleading with the publisher, I managed to get these twelve copies. If you are able to come across a copy of "From Tragedy to Triumph," you will find Stephanie's story on p. 91. If not, don't worry. The contract I signed gives me the copyright of the manuscript back next year when it goes out of print. Then, I am free to give a copy of the article to anyone who wants one.

National Day of Prayer

I would love some year to be able to go to Washington D.C. to attend the National Day of Prayer. With teenagers in the middle of end of school activities, it will not happen for several more years. If you're like me, you'll be spending time at the NDP website.  National Day of Prayer