Tim Boyd's Blog

Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-7) City of 250,000 Center of town was a humongous church for Diana (the greek goddess of hunting and fertility, as well as the moon).  (Insert joke here).    Every building in town as well as every coin they had had a palm leaf on it.  That was her symbol. They believed that she was born outside of town in a grove of palm trees.  They called the grove paradise and the tree “the tree of life.”  Sound familiar? Jesus introduces himself as the one who holds the seven stars.  He identifiies himself as the one with all the power. The Ephesian church had forgotten their first love.  Jesus tells them to repent, and turn back to their first love, then they will eat every day from the tree of life and be with him in real paradise. Smyrna (Revelation 2:8-11) Was located on a hill and had buildings around the peak.  People called it the crown of smyrna. The town was leveled by Alexander the Great and rebuilt.  T...

I was fortunate enough to grow up with parent’s that sent me to a Bible camp for one week every summer.  I say fortunate, because those weeks of camp changed my life. It was at a camp that I learned about the awesomeness and immense size of God and His creation. It was at camp that I spent time with high school and college aged Christians.  They taught me that you can actually be a christian, and fun, when you are that age. It was at camp that I gave my heart to Jesus. Storm Mountain, SD - Camp I grew up in It was at camp that I learned what it meant to live life to the full.  Those camps sparked creativity, a sense of purpose, and a curiosity to find out what greater things lie out there waiting for me. My time at summer camps are some of the best memories I have from my childhood.   I’m so glad that my parents made me go when I was scared.  I’m glad that they made summer Bible camp a priority.  I know that kids are super bu...

Possibly my favorite video on the internet is the eharmony /cat loving/crying lady.  It's here .  Seriously - you should watch it. It's funny because it's so ridiculous.  That's pretty much how I felt at the end of our second service Sunday. First of all, I'm not a crier.  True I will cry, sometimes, during commercials, every time I see Titanic, and then at breakfast with my kids.  However, NO ONE SEES IT!  It's those little emotional cries that don't come to the surface.  That's how I like it.  No need to explain it and no need to slow the day down. Sunday, I sobbed...on the stage...at the end of the service.  I do this for a living (not the crying part).  I preach funerals without crying.  I am a fairly emotionally stable dude.  But I balled. Here's why. For the first time in my life I feel like I felt just a moment of what some people have felt their entire lives. I have never been in a position in life where I d...

One of the nicest people to ever live was a preacher.  That makes me so happy because my profession has taken some hits over the years.  Did you know some of the following things about Mr. Rogers?  ( These items were featured on CNN and researched by mental floss.) The sweaters. Every one of the cardigans he wore on the show had been hand-knit by his mother. He made thieves think twice. According to a TV Guide piece on him, Fred Rogers drove a plain old Impala for years. One day, however, the car was stolen from the street near the TV station. When Rogers filed a police report, the story was picked up by every newspaper, radio and media outlet around town.  Amazingly, within 48 hours the car was left in the exact spot where it was taken from, with an apology on the dashboard. It read, "If we'd known it was yours, we never would have taken it." He watched his figure to the pound. In covering Rogers' daily routine (waking up at 5 a.m.; praying for a few...

In January my wife started talking about doing a " Daniel fast ."  It's based on the scripture from Daniel 1:3-16, where Daniel and his friends eat only veggies and stay away from the king's table with it's fine food and fancy wine.  Basically you can eat fruit, veggies, nuts, and some grains.  You can't have sugar, anything processed, meat, animal product, anything with flavor or taste, or any CAFFEINE! I said, "I'm in."  So we started two weeks ago and we have one week left. The first couple of days were pretty terrible.  I'm not a terrible eater to begin with, but this was HARD.  My digestive system was not ready for the influx of fruit and vegetables.  But worse than any of that was the lack of caffeine.  I have been addicted to caffeine for longer than I've been married.  I didn't drink much soda before and I limited my coffee to just two cups each morning.  However, for this fast I had to cut it out completely.  Each morni...

There was a little town that had been decimated by some recent storms.  The people in this town were tough.  Years ago they had been through a storm that leveled there town and they had stayed and rebuilt.  Then another storm came even more powerful than the last one.  Some people moved out of the town and went to somewhere safer.  But these people decided that they weren’t going anywhere.  Maybe they were too stubborn to go, maybe they liked it too much there, or maybe they were just plain crazy.  Don’t know. This latest storm tore through the center of town and knocked down buildings.  It looked like a bomb had gone off.  The school was leveled, the bank, the post office, and many of the homes were destroyed.  So the people of the town decided that they were going to rebuild once again.  They didn’t have the money to just buy all new stuff.  So it was decided that every week they would meet together and bring with them o...

Galatians 5:25, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”  If you and I were reading this scripture together I would probably ask you what you think that meant.  Then you would probably answer something like “well we should be walking with the Spirit.”  I would agree and compliment you on your wonderful answer.  I think both of us would have, somewhat, missed the point of this phrase.  To keep in step with someone could signify a walk, but it also is the phrase you would use in dancing to keep up with your partner.  “in step” seems to signify, not a walk, but a dance  To be fully alive is to join God on the great dance floor of life. Many of the greatest Christian thinkers throughout history have stated that the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit (the three that make up the one God) are in a constant dance with eachother.  The concept is called the Perichoresis.  It’s from two greek words meaning “to dance among.”...