I just left a Marco Polo for Bradley. Some 30 years my junior, Bradley is one of the men God has placed in my life for me to pour into. He and I have begun to enjoy leaving frequent MarcoPolos for one another day by day as we encounter life, have needs for prayer and…
Category: Book Skin on Jesus
Men Who Put Skin on Jesus: Steve, Bob, Reid and Kevin
Dave S. from my last post, connected me to a group of guys called “Brothers in Christ” or BIC. This group of Portland businessmen of all ages was founded and led by a local lawyer named Don. The group met monthly for breakfast at a downtown club, hosted a Christmas lunch, and a yearly retreat….
Men who put Skin on Jesus: Ed D. and Dave S.
“I need to nail your feet to the ground,” Ed quipped on the way out of church one Sunday soon after I had arrived at Westside. It became his standing joke. He said it with a twinkle in his eye and a laugh. Ed, a barrel-chested, big guy, almost a decade older than me, has…
Men who put Skin on Jesus: Mike M.
I had been serving Banks 15 years. “Don’t call unless the appointment makes your heart sing,” I had told my District Superintendent (DS), Kate. In my denomination’s vernacular an “appointment” was a church to serve as pastor. In addition, I had told my leadership team what I had heard from my DS, “There were no…
Men who put Skin on Jesus: Iron Sharpens Iron
The “South Banks Project” was a bitter pill for Banks’ residents. Streets and utilities had been completed in what had been a field and construction had begun on the houses, when I arrived at the church. By and large, the predominant attitude about the project in the community was critical. The folk of the Banks…
Men who Put Skin on Jesus: Bill, Rand and Glen
The pastor at a nearby congregation had a good friend in Bill Seagren, who was pastoring at Marquam and Carus UMCs. Some members from my previous church in California were his parishioners. I wrote of that here. The three of us met for prayer a few times. I always longed for those prayer times…
Men who Put Skin on Jesus: Mark, Dex and Dick
Beginnings are tough, no matter where. I had arrived in Banks straight from the revival in San Jacinto and was full of how much I could offer. I was full of myself. This is never a good start for pastoral ministry. A constant refrain for many years there was, “They just don’t get it.” As…
Men who Put Skin on Jesus: Pastor Ehrhardt, Pastor Lee, and Pastor Skip
As a college senior, I had sat in Ehrhardt Lang’s office conflicted. The leader of my campus Bible study had taught on the need for immersion baptism. I had only been sprinkled as an infant. Ehrhardt listened with care, talked to me about the theology of baptism, how God made it valid even when I…
Men Who Put Skin on Jesus: Bob McDole, Bob Beckett and Don Hales
During seminary, we lived off my meager salary as a travel agent, what Karen earned until our daughter Anna was born, March 15th our first year at school, and mostly off the generosity of others. It astounded us how time and time again, God came through in the eleventh hour to pay bills. One spring…
Men who put Skin on Jesus: Dr. Steve Harper and Dr. Reg Johnson
Called into ordained ministry in the winter of 1983, Karen and I left for the Wilmore, Kentucky campus of Asbury Theological Seminary the following fall, in 1984. I arrived believing I was there to prove I was ready to do the work God had called me to rather than understand I was rather there to…
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