The Almanac

  • “Double Indemnity:” How to Visit a Church Like an Insurance Adjuster

    In today’s blog, you will be receive insights in how to visit a church like an insurance adjuster. In my insurance adjusting career handling all sorts of serious claims across the US, one of my favorite reads was Don Winslow’s “California Fire and Life” – “Jack Wade was the rising star of the Orange County…

  • Great Preaching: (Final Cut) Run!

    “If I was ever going somewhere, I was running!” Now you wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I could run like the wind blows. From that day on, if I was ever going somewhere, I was running! Forrest Gump As we discussed in parts I and II, you have spent time in your…

  • Pastor Works Out

    Pumping iron at the gym!Totally dominated the man on the machine next to me. His oxygen hose hung up on the barbells.

  • Aging Church

    Today at church in Sedona we got to shake hands with a church member turning 100! The surprise was learning he was a member of the youth group!

  • Great Preaching (Part II): Max Your Understanding in Preaching!

    For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding. – Colossians 1:9 Too much preaching is a reaction to something rather than addressing insights gained by…

  • The New Driver

    A televangelist and a homeless person both died and stood before the angel Gabriel. Behind Gabriel was parked a golden Rolls Royce. The preacher jumped behind the wheel and declared, “I claim this as mine!” There was silence in heaven. Then Gabriel decreed, “Yes. It is so!” And commanded the beggar to the back seat….

  • The Preacher’s Crawl

    When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. – St. Paul Preach: Crawl, Walk, Run! is not about how to preach, which is often a personal subject wrapped up in ego. Rather…

  • The Agony of Preaching

    Some helps for preachers and those who hear them “28  We proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ. 29 For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.” – Colossians 1:28-29 (NASB)  …

  • “Walk Together Economics”

    Step One: Design a replacement for the failed 401(k) Plan.  Professor Daniel Hemel, University of Chicago Law School, presents a viable option – Professor Hemel’s retirement plan, as published by ThinkAdvisor, borrows the same model used by members of congress and other Federal employees: “A public option in the form of the Thrift Savings Plan, currently…