Joseph F. Radosevich

I preach a historic sermon for our sunrise service every Easter. This year I preached a sermon based on a Charles Spurgeon's sermon on Philippians 3:10 on knowing the power of Christ's resurrection. When I was reading/studying to prepare, I wondered what made Spurgeon's mind work the way that it did. What did he read and think about that allowed him to see with such uniqueness, power, and clarity? I understand that he was unique. I don't seek to match Spurgeon's gifts. He was a prodigy as a young man, and God did something special in his life. I don't want to match Martyn Lloyd-Jones' gifts or J.C. Ryle's gifts. But I think it is worth seeking to see the way that they saw. When I was in seminary, I took at class on C.S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer. We read most of what each of them wrote. I've said before that the biggest value was in learning to think like they think. I can read Spurgeon, Newton, Ryle, Lloyd-Jones, etc., and I do. I now want to go f...

  It's finally past the last frost (today is actually the official last frost, and we were close this morning). Weather can be up and down all spring, but I think April will finish pretty warmly. I thought I'd do a garden update. You can see red onions and Victoria Rhubarb in the picture above. Rhubarb has done really well this spring. The onions look like rows of soldiers. The larger onion in the picture is a holdover from last year. I let it go hoping that it will go to seed--onions only produce seeds in their second year. We also have radishes, carrots, and lettuce growing. I planted some warm-weather seeds in the ground over the weekend so that they have a few days to germinate such as National Pickling cucumbers, Green Light F1 cucumbers, Jade bush beans, and Blue Lake pole beans. I'm also hardening off some red lettuces, all the tomatoes and all the peppers.  I overseed the lawn every spring and fall. We just haven't had great weather in spring or fall for oversee...

Someone asked me what is new at the church recently. I sputtered and stuttered about some new things I was working on. They weren't my priorities. They weren't what I was excited about. I got sucked into the question.  It happened again last week. Someone asked what was new. I tried to find something to say. Here is what I wish I had said: There is very little new in pastoring. Pastor is faithfulness to the basics with creativity and energy.  The basics of pastoring don't change--preach, pray, love people, and suffer. We equip the saints for works of service. That hasn't changed in 2000 years. It would be a problem if the job changed.  What does change is that we do the same thing with creativity and energy. I picked up this nuance from a Paul Graham post called " The Right Kind of Stubborn ." He isn't a church leader and isn't writing for church leaders, but he explores the difference between stubbornness and persistence. He says energy and imaginatio...

Being in my forties has changed my reading priorities. I read 50-70 books per year. That means I will likely read only 2800 more books in my lifetime. I will only read 1500 more books before I reach retirement age.  My approach was pretty haphazard from my 20's to my 40's. Unless it was required for school, I read whatever caught my eye and often was just the latest books that came out. That made my reading really random. If I heard a great interview with an author, I added it my list of books to read. I enjoyed that randomness, but I decided recently that I didn't want to be quite so random. One of the ways that I have reprioritized my reading is that I want to read the classics in my fields. What I mean by fields is my areas of responsibility and interest--often career and hobbies but probably family as well. My fields are career-related (pastoring, biblical studies, and preaching), Christian-related (theology and devotion) and writing (literature and writing). I've s...