Nick's Blog: Archive

Canine Chaos

In about ten minutes our son and daughter in law will arrive with their severely over active (and possibly demon possessed) dog , Baya. Of course, I mean demon-possessed in only the sweetest sort of way. Then our daughter will arrive with her large, but pretty mellow black lab, Marbles. Throw in our tiny little guy, Bailey—who has serious anxiety issues (especially with Baya)—and...

Feb 18th

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NOT AS STRONG AS WE THINK WE ARE In the shadow of the death of yet another pop icon, Whitney Houston, I couldn’t help but think of the words of the late Rich Mullens: We are frail We are fearfully and wonderfully made Forged in the fires of human passion Choking on the fumes of selfish rage And with these our hells and our heavens So few inches apart We must be awfully small ...

Feb 13th

The Winter That Never Was

Today is Feb. 5—Super Bowl Sunday. Most of planet earth (self included) will be tuning in to watch the Super Bowl in a few hours. Okay…so many of you will be tuning in to watch the commercials. Gotta love those Super Bowl commercials. For $3 million/30 sec. they better be good! The Super Bowl always falls in the teeth of winter—early February. It’s brutally cold in...

Feb 5th

To Fear or Not to Fear

This past weekend I gave a message about fear, namely that we need to stop denying/pretending (or being paralyzed by it), and work through it. In the course of the message I talked about the fact that the #1 command in the Bible is “Do not be afraid.” It starts in Genesis (15:1) and goes all the way to Revelation. Dozens and dozens of times God says, “Do not be afraid”...

Oct 10th

Sustainable Compassion

This week I am in the northern part of S. Africa (Mafikeng—near the Batswana border) on a personal vacation/missions trip. I am walking alongside an incredible couple by the name of Mike and Michelle Tessendorf. They are pastors and founders of an organization called Orchard: Africa (www.orchardafrica.org). It is movement of sustainable compassion amidst suffering and hardship that for...

Sep 29th

Learning The Gospel Thru Dylan (part 1)

I became a follower of Jesus when I was fifteen. Sometime after that I became a huge fan of Bob Dylan too. Not that Bob and Jesus are on the same level—although they are both Jewish (for whatever that’s worth). It’s just that I kept picking up key insights about God, life, death, faith, doubt, hope and host of other things through Dylan’s music. So I’ve decided...

Jul 6th

Spiritual Transformation: Prayer of Surrender

I recently attended a Transformation Intensive designed to help churches bring about authentic, deep spiritual transformation in people’s lives. I am also taking an online course called “The Leader’s Soul.” One of the major themes of both the conference and the online course is the place of spiritual disciplines/activities that are catalytic for ongoing spiritual growth...

May 11th

Praying for The Impossible

I recently read another blog about a group of pastors and church leaders who met for a four-hour service of Bible reading, a few short messages, singing, and prayer. This may sound like the ultimate in boredom to some, but something from the blog caught my attention. One of the speakers asked the question, “What are you praying for that seems impossible?” One guy said he was praying...

Apr 23rd

The Waning of Winter

Today is December 29, 2010. As of 5 p.m. I have declared winter over…almost. Yes, we live in Traverse City, MI. Yes, there is snow on the ground. Yes, undoubtedly there is more to come. But I have declared winter to be over…at least in the sense that hope is on the way. This is due to several undeniable factors. First, we had sunshine ALL DAY today. It’s a sign… ...

Dec 29th

Unsung Heroes

Our staff gathers once a week for a “DT” (devotional time). We sit quietly and read our Bible, write down insights and thoughts, some point of application and a prayer. Then we spend about 15-20 minutes talking about how God spoke to us. This morning Tim Homa, our Student Ministries pastor, brought up an interesting point from 2 Corinthians chapter 1. The apostle Paul was writing...

Apr 13th

The Sun Came Up -Revised

A recent post about some of my personal concerns over recent cultural trends that have social and political implications deeply offended someone I deeply care about and for whom I have great respect. And people matter a lot more to me than policy decisions. Furthermore…they were just my opinion. And I’ve been wrong before. So I apologize to anyone who may have seen the post. On...

Mar 22nd

Southern Swing

For several years we have had people ask us to visit them in Florida. We finally decided to take them up on it. We flew out of TC on Monday, March 8 and landed in Fort Myers, FL in the afternoon. We left TC in beautiful sunshine and 50 degrees. We landed in driving rain and winds. Oh well…the journey was on. Monday…dinner and an overnight with Ed and Doris Loznak. We’ve...

Mar 15th

Hope for Haiti

I am devastated by the pictures and reports of Haiti. But I am also moved by the compassion of so many sacrificing and giving so much to make a difference. Pray, give and do what you can to be a “difference maker.”

Jan 16th

Winter snow

Okay…so winter and snow sort of go together. But the snow today was extraordinary. I don’t know if there is such a thing—“ordinary snow.” I suppose all snow is extraordinary in the sense that no two flakes are exactly the same-like finger prints. But today’s snow was extraordinarily extraordinary. No, that’s not redundant. The snow today was soft,...

Dec 22nd

Dec 13th

Dec 10th

Dec 9th

Learning to Trust

Recently I talked about the importance of trusting God. In the Bible there is a well-known passage (Proverbs 3:5-6) that talks about ”trusting God with all of your heart…” A person came up to me and said, “Okay, but how does this work? How do we learn to trust?” I’m not entirely sure about this but my sense was that the question about learning to trust was...

Dec 4th

Watch

Amazing video about China and the spread of Christianity in that country.

Dec 4th

Dec 2nd

My previous blog

If you’re interested in viewing previous blog posts click on this link. Thanks! http://baypointechurch.blogspot.com/

Dec 2nd