Category: Rambling
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Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad: 42 lessons they taught me about parenting.
I often get asked about when my passion for marriage began. It began with my parents, Hal and Linda Barringer. Watching their marriage not only made me want what they had, but shaped the marriage I have. Don’t get me wrong, as they’ll tell you, they are by no means the model of perfection (ever seen…
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Say No to Venting: 6 Ways to Appropriately Deal with Marital Frustrations.
I’m a pro social media guy. If you follow me, you know I post just about everything. I try to keep most of my tweets/posts about things that are edifying or of comedic value. But as you well know, social media is a breeding ground for venting. One my personal pet peeves on social media is…
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How to pray for your pastor: 5 lessons my intercessor team taught me
One of the greatest decisions I ever made as a new Lead Pastor was for an intercessory team. I saw it as a priority my mentor (props to Joel Stocker) and it was one of the first things Anne said we needed to establish when we got to Kalamazoo. Very early in our tenor here, I…
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Slave to the Scale: 6 Thoughts to Help You Be Healthy Without Destroying Yourself
[My disclaimer to this blog: This article has high capacity to offend on deep levels if you lose the heart behind it. My heart is to tell MY story and not someone else’s. I’m not trying to point fingers but open you up to the struggle and temptation that I deal with that lies in…
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Social-Media Church: 8 Reasons why you should encourage your congregation to post while you preach.
I’m a proponent of social-media. Like it or not, it’s here and we have an opportunity to utilize it as an amazing tool for our preaching. The words “Hear, O Israel” in Deuteronomy 6:4 tells us that God wanted his instructions to have the maximum reach. He didn’t want anyone to miss out on what he…
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Self-Hurting Marriage: 7 Things we do every day that are actually hurting our marriage.
Something I learned a long time ago, when it came to my body, I was eating what I wanted and doing what I wanted not worried about the physical outcome. It lead to an unhealthy lifestyle that, because of an accident, empowered my doctor to give me some sobering news that changes needed to happen.…
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Confessions of an Insecure Pastor Part 2: 10 Things that definitely are NOT a waste of time for pastors
I’ll begin this post like my last in this series: My name is Dave. And I am an insecure pastor. Insecurity, defined, is the lack of confidence in oneself; the state of being open to danger. For generations, pastors have been fearful to admit this struggle, let alone, talk about it openly. I’ve been told it will…
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Confessions of an insecure pastor: 4 reasons why I shouldn’t preach all the time.
My name is Dave. And I am an insecure pastor. It’s the truth about many people, let alone pastors. Defined, insecurity is the lack of confidence in oneself. Also, it’s the state of being open to danger. Put that together in a pastor’s life, you’ve got someone who struggles with their own strengths and weaknesses…
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PKs: 7 Thoughts For Pastors About Their Kids
If you’ve ever heard the term, “PK” then you’ve been in church a while. It’s part of an exclusive club that requires one thing: You must have a parent as a pastor (unless you are the child of a missionary…then you’re an “MK”). I wouldn’t say I’m a “true PK” because I didn’t become one…
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Anniversary Thoughts: 17 marriage thoughts for each year of marriage
Tomorrow, Saturday, May 23rd…I’ll celebrate 17 years of marriage to my best friend. So I thought I’d share 1 thought per year we’ve been married. 17 thoughts about marriage that I’ve gathered over 17 years… 1. Be a spouse that admits you fall short of being perfect but excels in love for Jesus. We couldn’t ask for more…
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