by Rik Danielsen

The pastor laid his open Bible on the pulpit and looked at his congregation. He reached up and gave the microphone a slight adjustment as he cleared his throat. Then he said, “In response to last week’s twenty-seven point sermon, today’s message… …

by Rik Danielsen, D. Min.

In the middle of Matthew’s gospel, we find a story about Jesus and Peter that is probably familiar to most Bible readers. (Matthew 14:22-33) In that story, Jesus has been praying on a mountain while his followers set sail on the Sea of …

by Rik Danielsen, D. Min.

As a pastor, I’ve been called on to officiate a lot of weddings and funerals. Both have a certain amount of stress attached to them, but, for me, funerals tended to be the more emotional of the two ministries. Watching a widow and her …

by Rik Danielsen, D. Min.

How many times have you had a conversation with a person who doesn’t go to church and has no intention of going to church when you hear them say, “The church is full of hypocrites”? Most people, including people who are non-Christians, …

by Rik Danielsen, D. Min.

If the church revitalization consultants are right, anywhere from 70%-90% of American evangelical churches are either plateaued or in decline. That means they have peaked in their growth and have leveled off or they peaked sometime ago …

by Rik Danielsen, D. Min.

Recently, I watched a television show featuring the soldiers who guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington National Cemetery. There were many moving aspects to the story, but for me, the most moving was the inscription on the tomb:

by Rik Danielsen, D. Min.

My wife and I like to watch TV shows about hoarders. Hoarders are those folks who have a serious mental illness that keeps them from throwing anything away. They have an emotional attachment to almost everything in their home including …

by Rik Danielsen, D. Min.

It was a late summer day in 1971 and we were just a couple of hippies who had become Christ followers sitting on the beach getting ready to study the Bible. The weather was sunny and the surf was rolling in as we sat there. I had noticed …

by Rik Danielsen, D. Min.

One of my favorite guys in the White Mountains was a rancher by the name of Jack Carlisle. Jack was my friend, a deacon, and music leader at the church I was serving. Early in my ministry there, I asked him if he was going to be spending …