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The Gospel in the Canyon
The good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ must be proclaimed around the world; however, it must begin with us in our canyon. In order for us to understand the gospel, we must have a proper understanding of the Word of God. The purpose of this blog is to engage the reader and to inspire the reader to explore the Scriptures to, like the Bereans, see if these things are so. If you as the reader come away with a greater hunger to devote more time to God's Word, the Bible, then I believe this blog has fulfilled its intent.
JOSHUA VAN VLACK
Pastor, Canyon Bible Fellowship
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Fear and the Storm
Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee - Rembrandt Sitting here at my desk working on emails and other admin stuff, I received a text from a friend and fellow pastor. He is currently at a hospital with his brother grieving the sudden loss of his brothers four year old daughter. What do you say in those moments? How do you help someone process the weight of grief that comes with such a tragedy? Why do some people see long lives and others die so young? We look at our wor
Joshua Van Vlack
2 days ago2 min read
Hurried and Weary
Over the course of the last couple of weeks my schedule has been quite busy, busier than normal. The irony, in some ways, is that two of the items added to my schedule were designed to provide times of rest for those who were participating in them. I attended prayer retreats in different locations in back-to-back weeks. Saying yes to these events meant pushing other items on my usual schedule to later in the week. On my way home from Newport, I began listening to an audio
Joshua Van Vlack
Feb 42 min read
Blessed Unity
Recently, I had the great privilege of attending a pastors' prayer retreat at Camp Tadmor, located in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains just outside of Lebanon, OR. I needed to arrive early because the morning before the retreat began, the trustees from Church Venture Northwest would be having our quarterly meeting. One of the main topics on the agenda had the potential to be a hot-button issue. As the time to address that item drew closer, I was anxious to see how thing
Joshua Van Vlack
Jan 272 min read
Encouragement in Prayer
One of the things I have wrestled with from time to time is consistency in prayer. Perhaps this is because I wonder what good it does, what practical impact it is having. At times, I have felt like I am just uttering words into empty space, so in that sense I've operated as a practical atheist. When I pray, it can often be brief so that I can get on to the real business of the day. D. L. Moody once said, "If you have so much business to attend to that you have no time to pray
Joshua Van Vlack
Jan 202 min read
Access To Jesus
This past Sunday, I was preaching from the Gospel of Mark about Jesus' mother and brothers coming to retrieve Him and bring Him home ( Mark 3:31-35 ). I was struck by two things. First, the response of the crowd seemed to indicate, understandably, that Jesus' family had some more influence with Him than the rest of them did. The fact that they told Jesus His mother and brothers were present seems to indicate that they thought Jesus would stop what He was doing and at least se
Joshua Van Vlack
Jan 132 min read
Trust for the Future
Happy New Year. I'd be willing to guess that many of us have started out this year with some sort of resolution to improve ourselves in one area or another. Maybe we are resolving to stop doing something bad, or we are resolving to begin doing something good. One of the things on my list this year is to complete a daily Bible reading plan that has me in a different genre each day. I'm hoping that this will keep me from getting bogged down in the Pentateuch. Many a Bible-read
Joshua Van Vlack
Jan 62 min read
Advent Week - Christ
For the past six years, our church has hosted a Christmas Eve candlelight service. This tradition actually goes back to when I was deployed to Qatar in 2019. The Christmas Eve service I conducted there, I brought to our church when I returned. The service is simple: the reading of the Christmas story of Luke and Matthew interspersed with the singing of carols and a devotional at the end based on one of the carols. We have added one thing to this that is different from wha
Joshua Van Vlack
Dec 30, 20252 min read
Advent Week - Peace
Quite a number of years ago, back when VHS tapes were still a thing, I was taking an independent study class through Eastern Oregon University. On one of the video-taped lectures, the professor posed the following challenge to the students in the class: define the word 'peace' by what it is rather than by what it is not. This is a difficult thing to do, because we often want to describe peace as the absence of conflict or the cessation of hostilities. Yet both of these descri
Joshua Van Vlack
Dec 23, 20252 min read
Advent Week - Joy
By now, we're waist-deep into the Christmas season. The radio is playing an endless loop of timeless holiday songs. One of the classics, "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas," describes the happiness that comes along with the season in different ways: "A pair of Hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots is the wish of Barney and Ben. Dolls that will talk and will go for a walk is the hope for Janice and Jen. And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again!" In
Joshua Van Vlack
Dec 16, 20252 min read
Advent Week - Faith
This season of the year, perhaps more than most, has given us a wide range of movies to watch. One of the classic films is "Miracle on 34 th Street." As the film opens, the man who was supposed to play Santa Claus in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is drunk, and another man, who gives his name as "Kris Kringle" is pressed in to play the role. A little girl, Susan, doesn't believe in Santa Clause because her mother, Doris, says that such belief is unreasonable. A lawyer, a
Joshua Van Vlack
Dec 9, 20252 min read
Advent Week - Hope
Advent season has begun, and you've undoubtedly started hanging Christmas lights and listening to Christmas music. The first week of Advent focuses on the theme of hope. Perhaps for you, the season is less about being hopeful and more about feeling hopeless . Hope may seem more like trying to grasp at a whisp of smoke. You know it's there, but there is no way you can wrap you hand, let alone your head, around it. Hope, many people believe, is simply wishful thinking. Yet thi
Joshua Van Vlack
Dec 2, 20252 min read
Giving Thanks
It was a cold windswept day as a group of men pulled their cloaks a little tighter around them. Gray clouds blanketed the sky, broken up by the occasional patch of blue. They had made landfall far north of their intended destination, but at least they were on firm ground for the first time in months. For this, they could be thankful at least. After all they had endured transiting the turbulent Atlantic Ocean, it felt good to be on land again. Although the Pilgrims did not kno
Joshua Van Vlack
Nov 25, 20252 min read
Faithfulness in Small Things
As I was sitting at my desk this morning checking my email, I noticed one email from Church Answers included a blog article from Thom Rainer, entitled "The Urgent Need for Smaller Churches." The article opens with this interesting statistic, "In a report titled 'America: A Nation of Small Towns,' [the United States Census Bureau] noted that 76% of all incorporated places - nearly 19,500 of them - have fewer than 5,000 residents. Even more astonishing, almost 42% of incorporat
Joshua Van Vlack
Nov 18, 20252 min read
Remembering Faithful Servants
Yesterday was Veteran's Day. Like many on our calendar, it is a day where we take time to reflect and remember all that has taken place so that we might be free. Veteran's Day is different from Armed Forces Day and Memorial Day in one particular way. On Armed Forces Day, we remember those who are currently serving in our nation's military. On Memorial Day, we honor those who died in service to our country. However, on Veteran's Day, we remember those who have served in the mi
Joshua Van Vlack
Nov 12, 20252 min read
The Sacred and the Secular
As I write this, it is the first Tuesday in November, and which we all know means Election Day. With it being an off-year election, there typically isn't much to vote on. As a matter of fact, my ballot only had one item. Still, I dutifully marked my ballot and dropped it off at the closest designated drop-off place. As I think about it, I miss the old days of going to a polling place, walking in, finding my name on the list, getting my ballot, and filling it out there. There
Joshua Van Vlack
Nov 4, 20252 min read
Joyful Endurance
Freddie Freeman's walk-off homerun in the bottom of the 18th inning, October 27, 2025. (Photo Courtesy of Scripps News) Last night was epic. For those who aren't baseball fans, last night witnessed the longest game in World Series history. A marathon showdown between my beloved Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays went an astounding 18 innings. That's twice the length of a normal game. The game was filled with emotional highs and lows, with the only run scored aft
Joshua Van Vlack
Oct 28, 20252 min read
Fruit of the Vine
I am not a wine drinker. In fact, I have never consumed a recreational alcoholic beverage of any kind in my life. However, I do know that we live in some of the best wine country in the world. If you drive up from Albany to Salem, I-5 passes through Willamette Valley Vineyards. I had the opportunity to attend an even there many years ago, and I was amazed at the work that goes into maintaining the vines. The image of vines is a common one throughout the Bible. The words 'v
Joshua Van Vlack
Oct 21, 20252 min read
What About Me?
I've never been much of a country music fan. I know in some circles that is tantamount to heresy. However, I have enjoyed some of Toby Keith's songs from time to time, particularly his patriotic songs like "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" and especially "American Soldier." However, one of his songs, I think, captures an important aspect of fallen human nature. The chorus of his song "I Wanna Talk About Me" goes like this, "I wanna talk about me, I wanna talk about i. Wa
Joshua Van Vlack
Oct 14, 20252 min read
Sharing the Excitement
Solar Eclipse 2017 How many of you remember the solar eclipse of 2017? Karen and I were living in Keizer at the time, and this placed...
Joshua Van Vlack
Oct 7, 20252 min read
A Place of Worship
This past Friday, my wife and I, along with our exchange student and another couple from our church, had the privilege of taking the...
Joshua Van Vlack
Sep 30, 20252 min read
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