If you’ve made it to 9am Sunday School this summer, you may have noticed some new teachers leading the class. In fact, over the course of 14 weeks, there are nine different men taking us through the gospel of Mark. How in the world did we find nine guys to willingly subject themselves to this torture?

Let’s talk about teenagers. My youngest son Joseph morphs into one next week, and because God has a sense of humor, I will be the parent of four of them for the next four months. Do you know how many teenagers it takes to change a light bulb? Just one—they just have to hold on to the bulb and the world revolves around them.

My favorite comedian, Brian Regan, has a bit about the “Me-Monster”, where he makes fun of people who are always trying to turn the focus of conversations onto themselves. Did you have a rough day? The Me-Monster had a worse day. Did you recently go on vacation? The Me-Monster went somewhere even more exotic. And so on. Nobody likes a Me-Monster.

The beginning of each year, for the Evans household, is Robotics season. This year, our high school senior has devoted countless hours since early January designing and building a robot ex nihilo. He works alongside a team of about 20 industrious teenagers, travelling to various arenas, hoping their robot outscores dozens of others in exciting weekend-long competitions. They do their best to program the robot for good and not evil.

A dozen or so years ago, Foundry Church introduced an educational program called “Foundations,” a compilation of free seminary-level classes, mostly through biblicaltraining.org. The main idea was to point eager learners in the right direction toward greater biblical understanding and deeper faith.

Don’t tell anyone, but I like to drive outside the lines. It’s just to remind myself who’s in charge. I’m not going to let some bureaucrat at the department of transportation tell me what to do! Pretty rebellious, I know, but some of you go even further with your “off-roading”. You know who you are!

At the end of this month, my mom and dad are heading to the holy land without me. Like a puppy looking out the window when his family leaves the house, I am left behind only to dream of the wonderful places they are visiting. Pouring over maps, paying close attention to the names of places in the Bible, I imagine the sights, sounds and smells of the land full of milk and honey.

In just a few days, the women of Foundry Church will gather for a weekend retreat at Ochoco Christian Camp. From what will they be retreating? Everyday challenges, like being a volunteer, a wife, a mom, an employee, a business owner, a teacher, a caregiver, a friend, or all of the above? Are they retreating from the pressures, pulls and pushes of life?

Have you ever felt ashamed? Of course you have. Maybe, despite your best attempts to stifle the memory, your most embarrassing moments stalk you like a long shadow. I still cringe when I think about even my most innocent embarrassments. Get behind me, middle school!

“It seems to me that the older I get the less I think I really understand God,” writes Christopher Wright, in The God I Don’t Understand. Ironically, Wright, a theological heavyweight, brilliantly explains some of the thorniest parts of scripture, such as the problem of evil and the end times. However, his point is that as much as we can be certain about biblical teaching, the God of the Bible is ultimately beyond our full comprehension…and that’s a good thing.

Call me Ishmael, which in Hebrew, means “God will hear”. It’s hard to believe it’s been a whole year since I began learning biblical Hebrew. It was January 2024 when I audaciously tried to persuade readers of this blog to join me in learning the first language of the Bible.

Once upon a time, I etched on these pages a story of how I survived the clutches of a wild gang of children who had me confined in a basement. I lived to tell the tale of my captors’ exploits and how their barbaric curiosity and unbounded energy led to a gospel presentation and an afternoon nap. Today, nearly two years later and by God’s mercy, my heart still beats.