New episode of the #branchespodcast “What Difference Does That Make” live today! LISTEN Here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-difference-does-that-make-with-dr-mike-courtney/id1502775969#episodeGuid=bde40628-e3b3-4eb5-966c-cbed1551e8f4 Continue Reading
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Mother’s Day and Calendars
NOTE: I wrote this blog on Mother’s Day, May 10. I started with a made-up story that illustrated the point of the unreliability of family legends. As I was rewriting it, the “tenses and pronouns” got changed until it sounded like it was MY family, MY Uncle Billy, and MY story. That was unintentionally misleading… Continue Reading
The God Who Pursues
A few weeks ago, my family got up early on a Saturday morning to run the Special Kids 5k. It is a huge and wonderful event in our city. Thousands of runners at the “butt crack” of dawn, gather to run and to raise money for this amazing organization. So, this year our whole family… Continue Reading
Well, Here We Go!
Well, Here We Go! I love Jennifer, my daughter-in-law but she cries a lot. Especially when it comes to watching her boys grow up. That’s okay. I usually cry with her. I remember a few years ago we had a tearful moment. Jon-Mical who was 7 was having his first official sleepover at a friend’s… Continue Reading
What Difference Does That Make? A new podcast
Link to a Pre-Bonus addition of our new pocast Continue Reading
Corona, Christ, and Cottage Cheese
I love cottage cheese. There is just something about a nice dish of cottage cheese in the evening, doused with a shake or two of seasoning salt, and maybe garnished with a couple of Ritz crackers that spells the good end of a long day. Doris likes a cup of green tea. James Bond preferred… Continue Reading
Outrun vs Outgrow
Larry Thompson was a big, fat, bully. I was in the 6th grade and the new kid in school at Rock Hill Elementary. My first day, at recess, a gang of boys (I use that term loosely, gang, not boys. I’m sure they were boys. Well, most of them.) cornered me on the playground and… Continue Reading
Change
On December 27, 2019, my youngest son, Jacob, was a motorcycle riding, jet airplane flying, tattoo wearing, guitar playing, pistol-packing connoisseur of life. If it was exciting, Jacob tried it. If it would scare the daylights out of your parents, Jacob did it. If it was an adventure, Jacob was all for it. On December… Continue Reading
Influence
I was a young associate pastor at a great university church in Ohio. The first Sunday that I was there, a long, lean, lanky guy, about my age, came up to me and said, “Hey, I’d like to get breakfast with you this week.” His name was Sam Riggleman and he was the baseball coach… Continue Reading