Welcome

Starting today I’ll be sending out a weekly newsletter as part of my new gig as Pastoral Catalyst and Coach for the Fayetteville area. If you don’t know what the means, here’s the rundown. The plan is to send out a weekly devotional in the classic StuffSteveSays tradition (and the Jumpstarts before that), with relevant ministry updates and prayer requests. Let me know what you think of the format. There will be tweaks.

Devotion: Living on Forest Time

“Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,” says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” (‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭54‬:‭10‬ ‭NIV)

Forests tell time differently than we do. The lots to either side of our house are wooded, as is our back yard. Every morning I try to go out on our back deck and spend a couple minutes studying the “woods” and pondering the awesomeness of God.

Looking out every day I notice the new sprouts and the dying limbs, but mostly I notice how similar the woods look from one day to another. It’s like one of those “What’s changed between these two pictures?” games, but with the answer most days being “Nothing much.”

But things do change and are changing. Of course there’s the seasonal stuff and the animal stuff. That squirrel nest wasn’t there last week.

But the reality is that if I took a picture and came back in a year, the differences would be somewhat noticeable. If I came back in a decade, the changes would be extensive. One hundred years? Different forest. It’s slow change to me because forests tell time differently than we do.

Isaiah this week mentions an even slower calendar: mountains. Their movements are plotted over eons. If you ignore the forests residing on top of the hills, you’d need to wait many centuries to see meaningful change (assuming bulldozers aren’t in play).

That’s the time scale God uses when he talks about his love and his promises. Even if the hills start sliding around, his love never changes. Even over the time it takes for majestic mountains to get ground down to rolling hills, the promises of his covenant are not amended.

In a world where everything seems to change by the minute, where I’m checking every hour for the newest update to some “news” story, God’s unchanging nature should be an amazing comfort—and is if I let it be.

[Father, thank you for your unchanging love and never-ending promises. Help me to rest in that reality today.]

What’s Happening

My focus for the rest of the year will be making contact with Fayetteville area pastors, building our team, and finishing my dissertation. The dissertation goal is the end of the year so I can graduate in May. I’m almost halfway through, I think.

I’ll be at a pastor’s meeting in Sanford on Tuesday, helping prepare a soldier to train church leaders in South America on Saturday, and a meeting in Fayetteville the next week, as well as whatever else pops up.

Team building is going well. New team members include: Bill & Juanita Kellaris, Wayne & Pearl Groefsema, Neil Watkins, Denise Fennell, Sam & Sarah Sittler, Ralph Davis, David & Caroline Cooke, John & Heather Alford, April Folsom, Joe & Emma Martin, Brian & Beverly Reid, and Raymond Gephart. Thanks and welcome aboard!

If you’d like more information on partnering with us, check here. And you can subscribe to this newsletter here:

Prayer

• Kim is back in school, and teaching first graders has its challenges.
• We need to continue building our financial support.
• I really need to finish the main draft of my dissertation by the end of October.

Feedback

ChatGPT and I came up with a new logo for the website. What do you think of it?