One of the Lord’s great gifts is to transform a difficult relationship into a blessing. Jan Dow was a woman in our church in Novato who gave me more trouble than any other person in our congregation. ...  Read More

My wife Kristina is a lady with peculiar habits. She worked on a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle on our dining room table, which our grandchildren had left her after their visit. Now, most people look closel...  Read More

I was preaching in San Rafael last Sunday. The sermon text the Lord had given me began with John 14:1, “Do not let your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me.” My message was alrea...  Read More

This Easter, Kristina and I went to California to celebrate my mom’s ninety-fourth birthday. Our family gathers on Easter afternoons at my cousin Kendall’s house in Napa. Since we planted Living Strea...  Read More

Earlier this month, David Stockton invited me to join him and Ryan Romeo, our church’s Creative Arts Pastor, for a conference on the Holy Spirit in Portland. We flew to Portland and checked into an Ai...  Read More

I was breathing deeply as I followed an elk trail up a steep hill in Northern Arizona earlier this month. The trail wove through the pine forest, crossing under fallen trees and around jagged rocks. I...  Read More

At the end of June, I took a trip to Ecuador with Jay Murphy, our worship leader at Living Streams. We had a week of fruitful ministry with leaders and churches in Cuenca and Quito. Our hosts in Quito...  Read More

I attended a conference in the Canary Islands this month with Christian leaders from Argentina, Ecuador, Italy, India, France, Spain, England, Africa, and the United States. It was refreshing to be wi...  Read More

In June of 1972, I drove from Marin County to Dallas, with the Jews for Jesus. Moishe Rosen, their founder, had invited me to accompany six of them to Explo 72, a gathering of over 80,000 mostly young...  Read More

Years ago, one of my brothers came to visit me with his girlfriend. When I started to talk to him about their relationship, he looked at me and said,“You are my brother. You are not my pastor!”That qu...  Read More

Our son in law, Robert Plaisted, is a Glendale police officer. He was in the station briefing room at 5:00 AM with other officers preparing for their morning shift last month when the Assistant Chief ...  Read More

I recently had two memorable dreams that spoke to me. In my first dream, I was in a room with fifty believers sitting in a big square. I was trying to teach them the value of doing ministry with a tea...  Read More