I am blessed to have such a beautiful wife and seven children. My family and I have greatly enjoyed the Dunnellon area and are excited to be a part of such dynamic church growth.
I have been ordained since 1989 and this is my fourth appointment ministering to a local congregation. I have served the church on the District level in two areas and the Annual Conference on the Board of Church and Society. 
I can't imagine pastoring anywhere else at this time of my life. I have no doubt that God has blessed me greatly by serving this wonderful congregation."

Our devotion this week comes from The Upper Room, Wednesday, August 5th, with the title, “The Delight of Prayer.”

The passage to be read is John Chapter 17. This is the place where Jesus, first prays for Himself and then the disciples and then He prays for all that will someday believe through the disciples, which means that he prayed for you and me. If prayer is that important to Jesus then obviously it should be a lifeline to us. My question this week for you is...how is your prayer life? Common human nature tells us to pray when things are bad and when things are good... not so much :-). We all know in the world in which we live today things have not been so good. I am hoping your prayer life has grown and if not… Let’s start today.

There are many different types of prayer and hopefully you can fit into one of these I’m about to list today. The first one is praise and adoration. I would encourage you to read Psalm 100 where it says enter into His courts with praise. Prayer is conversation with God which means sharing with Him your heart, as well as listening to Him. Praise is very much a part of that, for who He is. Intercessory prayer is one that probably most of us do more often than the others. This is when we are thinking of someone and praying that God‘s will would be done and that His healing touch would be upon them. In James Chapter 5, it tells us there were times to annoint someone with oil as a sacred symbol of the Holy Spirit as we pray and intercede for them and the prayer of faith will bring healing. In this process we are cooperating with God by receiving the anointing as well as believing and confessing our sins. Contemplation is a type of prayer where we would read Scripture over someone or over a certain situation and try to enter into that verse or story of the Bible and experience God's presence. This is the type of prayer lifted up in the devotion today. I will offer one more type of prayer since I’m getting lengthy this week :-) First Chronicles 4:9,10 is called the Jabez prayer and it is the prayer asking for something. I believe we need to connect with God all the time and ask for things as big as our financial future as well as a parking place when I get to work :-).

Please consider experimenting with different types of prayer this week, I know the good Lord will direct your paths. 

Blessing on you this week!