If you are looking to change up your usual Christmas songs, here are 10 of my favorites that are part of my 50+ songs Spotify Christmas playlist… Father Christmas by The Kinks Christmas by The Who Blue Christmas by Elvis Presley Merry Christmas From The Family by Robert Earl Keen Mele Kalikimaka by Bing Crosby Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer … Continue reading →
While the majority of my radio listening time is talk radio I periodically listen to my Spotify playlists, especially when I am down by the beach because of reception issues. This isn’t all I have in my playlists but the app says this it is the top 25 most listened to songs from my personal Spotify, counting down… 25. … Continue reading →
We share the same mom, at birth anyway, but her influence was just as intentional upon my life as with yours. You experienced her influence through the awesome privilege of knowing her, loving her, holding her, building a bond with her, while I have only had gratitude for her. That gratitude is all I carried with me for 54 years … Continue reading →
There was once a time while I was serving as a hospital chaplain that my family and I attended a new and growing Baptist church. We loved the fellowship, the church, the vision for growth, but there was one thing that use to drive me nuts…the pastor would often say “Why do you get so excited about your favorite sports … Continue reading →
Francis Chan has the left the mega church world and is now focused on ministry through his We Are Church house church network. I happen to like Francis Chan and I have a greater respect for his voice when it comes to advocating for simpler and smaller church groups and communities. Here is a video clip that I like and … Continue reading →
I can remember one of my Old Testament professors discussing the difference between leaders who pull and leaders who push. He explained the difference by sharing with the class something he witnessed on a trip in the Middle East while he was traveling from a teaching assignment in Israel to a new teaching assignment in Ethiopia. He explained that when … Continue reading →
David Jones was a British teenager who wanted to make a career out of his love for music. He was playing and performing his music before he ever graduated from school. He became a leader of several bands and finally recorded his first album. The album received positive reviews by England’s harshest music critics, yet it sold little. In a … Continue reading →
There is a difference between leadership and management. You may be a workplace manager, but not necessarily a workforce leader. You may even have supervisory responsibility of employees, but that doesn’t automatically make you a leader. Leaders differ with managers in that they posses and practice qualities that allow them to succeed in motivating people. They don’t just manage projects; … Continue reading →
While working with Hurricane Katrina victims, as a hospital chaplain, I was struck by the quick turn-around one patient took, when he suddenly found something to laugh about. He lost everything he owned, including his house, his pets, and his brand new 5-day old F150 Ford pick-up truck. His adult children and his wife were safe, but like most Mississippi … Continue reading →
Pastor Steve Durkac’s Personal Testimony… I grew up as one of five adopted children and it was my story of adoption that most influenced my faith in Jesus as my personal Savior and here is how… As a teenager in the cold snowy, over-cast, small Northeast Ohio town of Rossford, during the heavy metal punk-rock era of the late 70’s, … Continue reading →
I am going back to using my English Standard Version. Last August I bought a Christian Standard Bible and really liked it and I still do, but in recent months my enthusiasm for this new translation has developed into reservation. An odd thing about me is that I like to have one Bible that I stick to for personal reading, … Continue reading →
When I left my pastorate with a church an Adventist church in Aiken, South Carolina in the 90’s, I was given a small gift of a marble and gold metal sailboat that read “A man that walks with God always gets to his destination.” It sat in my study on a shelf, from move to move, about 10 inches long … Continue reading →
While we were looking at the 4th chapter of 1 Corinthians, I pointed out that Paul’s understanding of a minister was very different than today’s “executive” or “celebrity” image often assigned to today’s pastors. 1 Corinthians 4:1 gives us the glimpse of ministry being likened unto a 3rd tier rower of a slave ship, something that James pointed out was … Continue reading →
I am happy to be back in Mobile today after being in San Antonio, Texas this week. Memorial Service… The memorial service for Frank Wehrly went well and it was well attended as we celebrated and honored his life and family. Frank had fought lung cancer for 9 years until he passed last week just a week beyond his … Continue reading →
It’s not often I copy and paste from another’s blog but I can’t say it any better and I want to share these thoughts with our CrossHope Chapel fellowship and those considering God’s calling to a simple church ministry. The below words are from a January 29, 2015 post by Ben Gosden, Senior Pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church in … Continue reading →
The solution to unprovoked firearm violence in our society is not gun control, but self-control. Galatians 5:23 tells us that self-control is the result of the indwelling Spirit of God in one’s life, and without the Holy Spirit there is no control over one’s unbridled sinful behavior. The angry expressions of violence are easily acted upon when the Holy Spirit … Continue reading →
Somewhere along the line of my journey with CrossHope Chapel, it occurred to me that my calling in this mission was one of an “organic pastor” in philosophy, approach, and ministry. I want to give you a definition for the term “organic pastor” which is a term that I like to use when talking about those called of God to pastoral … Continue reading →
Yesterday, May 23, 2017 would have been my birth mother’s 79th birthday, had she not died in 1990. I was thinking earlier today that when I get to heaven I will have two mothers – the mother that adopted me and the mother that birthed me. Interestingly, the mom who raised me is named Irene and the mom who birthed me … Continue reading →
I have been out of the Seventh-day Adventist church almost as long as I was in the Seventh-day Adventist church. Since I have been among and ministering within non-Adventist churches, I have observed some things that I have always thought would be worth sharing with my Adventist friends. These are observations that I wish were shared with me when I … Continue reading →
I finally got my baby feet. What I mean is, I just received the card stock paper where the nurses at St. John’s Hospital in Fargo, North Dakota inked my feet, shortly after being born on October 1, 1962 and made an impression of my baby feet with ink. As I looked at the paper with the impression of my new … Continue reading →
I am an adoptee, and you can read my personal testimony to learn how that impacted my conversion and sustaining faith in Jesus Christ and His word. Here I wish to share 3 Scripture verses that I believe speak to the real significance of every individual who may be wrestling with their identity because of being an adopted child. Jeremiah … Continue reading →
This morning in our gathering at CrossHope Chapel, my wife made mention of a dream that I had recently where she woke me because I was repeating the name Jesus. She joked that she actually thought it was some kind of near-death experience, but the reason I was repeating the name Jesus was because I was confronted with a demon … Continue reading →
Last night at our Midweek Fellowship we were talking about the topic of joy, and afterwards I remembered two other important Bible verses that we could have looked at: • Nehemiah 8:10 – “for the joy of the Lord is your strength” • Proverbs 17:22 – “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.” Also, here … Continue reading →
At the end of 1999 I walked away from my pulpit as a Seventh-day Adventist minister, having spent 18 years of my adult life in the denomination, including serving as a pastor in both the Carolina Conference of SDA and the Gulf States Conference of SDA. At the time that I left the Adventist denomination I was going through an unwanted … Continue reading →