By Alex Anderson, Senior Associate Pastor at Bayside Community Church While I sat with the family in the surgical waiting area, I saw the elevator doors open. It was the surgeon. As he walked the twenty-five feet or so from the elevator to the waiting room, he was looking at the floor as though he was searching for something, maybe …

By Alex Anderson, Senior Associate Pastor at Bayside Community Church 2:38 p.m. February 12, 2015 Upper Room, Day Spring Episcopal Conference Center Parrish, Florida Dear Reader, My friend Ben Rodgers and I took an afternoon break from the day’s leadership development work we were engaged in and, while on our break, Ben, who is the executive director of Children’s Cup …

By Alex Anderson, Senior Associate Pastor at Bayside Community Church In the 2002 movie Cast Away, Tom Hanks plays the character Chuck Noland, an extremely punctual FedEx executive whose plane crashes during a storm over the Pacific Ocean. He becomes the sole survivor and washes ashore on an uninhabited island. The thing that’s most moving to me is his motivation …

By Alex Anderson, Senior Associate Pastor at Bayside Community Church I want to share a recent email from a friend. I warn you it may cause some spiritual discomfort. Hi Pastor Alex, I was thinking today of how amazing it is that you just sent a Dangerous Prayers email lesson on this subject. My husband and I have led a …

By Alex Anderson – Senior Associate Pastor at Bayside Community Church – Henry killed people…for a living. Oh, it was perfectly legal. He worked for the government. His specially trained unit could get in and out almost without a sound. No weapons fired and no sensational acrobatics or choreographed Kung Fu moves, just the silent taking of another human being’s …

By Alex Anderson, Senior Associate Pastor at Bayside Community Church Remember the line, “Bueller…(long pause), Bueller…(long pause), Bueller,” from the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”? The actor, Ben Stein, made that line infamous as the boring, monotone high school teacher, while he was taking the class role. However Benjamin Jeremy Stein’s real life has been anything but boring. In addition …

By Alex Anderson, Senior Associate Pastor at Bayside Community Church I’ve gotten this call many times over the last 20 years, “Pastor, my spouse is having an affair, what do I do?” This question eventually leads to another question, “How do I forgive?” I usually start with this story. While I was a volunteer pastor, many years ago, I worked …

By Alex Anderson Mayflies I had this crazy thought. See if you can follow me on this. I’m 53 years old. If I live to be 86 years old (a very real possibility given my genes) then I have 33 years left. At first this sounds like a lot of time, and it is, unless the perspective is changed to …

By Alex Anderson Senior Associate Pastor at Bayside Community Church Bizarre Stories There are enough bizarre things about the Bible to give lots of reason to visit its pages regularly. Some of my crazy favorites are as follows: Peter, one of Jesus most noteworthy disciples, gets out of a perfectly good boat and walks to Jesus on the waters of …

By Alex Anderson Senior Associate Pastor at Bayside Community Church Last June I had the privilege of spending some time with Pastor Rick Warren and a few other awesome pastors in Orange County, California. Even thought it had been a brief six weeks since Pastor Rick had lost one of his sons, he was incredibly warm and very engaging. As …