At the start of 2017, I took a deep breath and sent a message out to ten people who have known me for at least ten years. While that may not sound like a big deal, the reason it required a deep breath is because I asked those ten people to tell me the first three words that come to mind when they think of me. At the time, it felt like a huge Read More

I'll be the first to admit that it can be hard to have a nuanced conversation about generosity in a culture that measures almost everything, including God's blessing, in terms of material abundance. I know I've been guilty of thinking that the most generous among us are those who have accumulated vast amounts of wealth and are now making plans Read More

In the aftermath of Pentecost, the church was unabashedly generous. Luke, the author of Acts, tells us, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” Some have suggested that an early form of socialism was being practiced in Jerusalem, but Read More

More than a decade ago I sat on the edge of my seat as I listened to an aged pastor tell the remarkable story of his experience leading a church in Washington, D.C. In vivid detail he described each phase of the church's fifty-year journey, remembering like it was yesterday each daring, faith-filled step of this small, yet courageous Read More

Last month I was on the edge of my seat as our founder's grandson, Paul Palmer, Jr., told me how the Chesapeake Lodge came to be — it's a story only God could write! It was the mid-1980s, and Sandy Cove, as rich in faith as it had ever been, was preparing for one of its most ambitious projects to date: the creation of a retreat and Read More