As a lover and occasional writer of poetry, the following words by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) remain emblazoned in my mind, although I first read them years ago: “What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but...

With his retirement on the horizon, my mentor/friend, Steve McLean, was asked to speak to a group of a missionaries on the topic “Three Verses That Kept Me in the Ministry.” As you can tell, the topic spurred me to consider the same question for myself. After some...

What do churches want in a pastor? This question has swirled around in my mind for years. Given that no pastor can or will be a second incarnation of Jesus Christ, no church will find or select a sinless man to lead their church. This means every search committee...