About twenty-five years ago I was planting a church in Garland, Texas. Our little congregation was meeting in what had been a bank building. Our nursery was in the vault. One Sunday night after church one of our men commented that he had inherited an old military...

[This essay was originally published on April 12, 2013.] In order for a church to function as a community, its members must develop relationships that touch all of life. The development of these relationships requires Christians to share interests outside of the...

When I was thirteen, my father became convinced that the Lord was calling him to pastor. He moved our family across several states to attend Bible college. He took his first pastorate while he was still a student. That put me in a position to hear the week-by-week...

Paul Greene was already into his mid-eighties before I met him. Our relationship remained distant and casual until I began to plant a church near Dallas, Texas. To my surprise Paul and his wife Mildred quickly identified with that small congregation, later becoming...

(NOTE: This essay first appeared in August of 2016 under a different title. It is reprinted here because of the contribution it makes to the topic.) Every once in a while, God sends a person into our lives whom He uses as a means of grace. A person like that is more...

I met David Keith in January of 1974. He had just been discharged from the Army (where, as company clerk, he was reputed to have awarded his whole unit a Good Conduct Medal). He rode his Honda 350SL from Panama City up the Pan American highway through Central America...

Where is the line between ordinary and extraordinary men? A man may be quite ordinary in most aspects of life, yet quite exceptional in others. If the unique aspects of his life are seldom noticed, he may be remembered only as an ordinary person. David Nettleton was...

In the fall of 1979 I began my first semester as a student at Denver Baptist Theological Seminary. One day the missions professor, Dick Tice, asked if I might be interested in a pastoral staff position. I had been asking the Lord for something like that, and I told...

Elmer Jahn went home to be with the Lord on February 10, 2018. He had lived 88 years. I am privileged to have called him my father-in-law, and he had a profound impact on me, his other relatives, and many, many others. How did this man with very humble origins come to...

The first time I met John Javaux was on the gridiron. He was playing linebacker; I was a tight end. We got acquainted when he decided to blitz the quarterback. I met him with a cross-body block, then slipped down into a crab block. He was bigger and stronger than me,...

My parents were led to the Lord by a church planting missionary in Freeland, Michigan. I was only three or four years old. When that missionary left, the church went through a series of pastors. Some were more qualified and some less. The congregation finally called a...