top of page
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
Blog: Text
Search
True Riches
Back in 2019, not long after being called to be the pastor at Canyon Bible Fellowship, I received orders to deploy to Qatar with a battalion from the Oregon Army National Guard. In addition to taking me away from our church, this deployment meant that my wife, Karen, and I would be spending our tenth anniversary apart from one another. When I arrived in country, the chaplain I would be replacing took me on a tour of the markets in the capital city of Doha. One place we visite
Joshua Van Vlack
6 hours ago2 min read
The Interdependent Church
Social media can at times seem like a combat zone, and I have a tendency to add to the fury by posting a statement or question which can generate some heated debate. A few weeks ago, I posted this comment, which at the time I didn't think was very controversial: "Every Christian must be an active member of a local church. You cannot be your own pastor any more than you can be your own doctor or lawyer. On top of this, you were born again into a new family, to which you are to
Joshua Van Vlack
May 52 min read
Penance and Repentance
In 1510, a young Augustinian monk arrived in the city of Rome for the first time after a journey of roughly 800 miles. A lawyer by training, he had hoped that his pilgrimage might somehow bring peace to a mind long troubled by the weight of his own soul. Penance, he had been told, was the way to deal with his guilt, and so he made his way to the "Scala Sancta" or "holy stairs": the steps Jesus supposedly ascended to face His trial before Pontius Pilate. The only way the truly
Joshua Van Vlack
Apr 282 min read
Wickedness and the Word of God
It's hard to read the news these days without getting the impression that wickedness and hostility seem to be the dominant themes in the world. It's hard to look away from what's going on, a bit like not wanting to seeing a car wreck but not being able to take your eyes off of it. One of the frequent questions in the Bible is why the wicked seem to succeed and the righteous falter. Abraham alludes to it when he intercedes for Lot who is living in Sodom. It is a key theme in t
Joshua Van Vlack
Apr 212 min read
Dense Disciples
This past Sunday, I returned to my sermon series through the Gospel of Mark, picking up with a story that is very familiar: Jesus walking on the water. The disciples have just witnessed Jesus feeding 5,000 men, not including women and children, and now He sends them off across the Sea of Galilee. What should have been a short 1 or 2-hour journey turns into an all night marathon as they find themselves straining with all their might against the winds and the waves. Between thr
Joshua Van Vlack
Apr 142 min read
Rescue Mission
I'm sure most if not all of you by now have been following the story of the rescue of the downed American weapons systems officer (WSO) over the weekend. According to news reports, an F-15E Strike Eagle was shot down over SW Iran on Friday, leading to the pilot and WSO ejecting. The pilot was extracted a few hours later, but the WSO had to evade detection for nearly two days before he could be located and a rescue attempt made. Early Sunday morning a combat search and rescue
Joshua Van Vlack
Apr 72 min read
Post Tenebras Lux
Welcome to the time of year we often refer to as "Holy Week." As I've been preaching my way through the Gospel of Mark, one of the things I've encouraged the congregation to do from time to time is to put themselves in the sandals of those who were living at the time Jesus walked the earth. This particular week, I would imagine, would have been a roller coaster of emotions for the followers of Jesus, not just His immediate disciples. You would have had the high of the Triumph
Joshua Van Vlack
Mar 312 min read
When God Speaks
With this week being Spring Break, my wife and I decided to take a couple of days and go away to the coast with our exchange student and our 5-year old golden retriever. The house we rented sat on a hill looking down on the ocean beaches. I grew up not far from the coast, and I've always enjoyed visiting. One of the things that amazes me is the constant sound. The winds can be perfectly calm, but the waves continuously crash, producing an endless roar. In Psalm 29 , David
Joshua Van Vlack
Mar 252 min read
A Missionary-Minded Church
This past week, I had the privilege of attending Church Venture Northwest's Annual Enrichment Conference in Seaside. The theme of the speaker's messages centered around redeveloping in the local church a mission-minded culture. This isn't a focus on cross-cultural, overseas missions, as important as that is. It is a focus on regaining a perspective on our local communities with the zeal and mindset of a missionary going into a culture that is not his own. In Acts 1:6-8 ,
Joshua Van Vlack
Mar 172 min read
Peace in Perilous Times
Image courtesy of Reuters . I'm sure pretty much everyone has been following the events of the past few days, with American and Israeli forces engaging in combat operations against the government of Iran. Having been to the Middle East a number of times, I have some appreciation for the seriousness of the events taking place over there right now. Additionally, I have friends and family in the region, as I'm sure some of you may as well. It can be challenging at times to re
Joshua Van Vlack
Mar 32 min read
True Gold
I don't know how many of you took the time out of your schedules to watch any of the Winter Olympics over the course of the last few weeks. For me the most moving moment came at the end of the games. Sunday morning, for the first time in 46 years, the U.S. men's hockey team clinched the gold medal, beating the Canadians with an overtime goal. What made it particularly special was what the team did after the gold medal ceremony. Two years earlier, Johnny Gaudreau, who was to b
Joshua Van Vlack
Feb 242 min read
A New View
The past few days have been rough for the Van Vlack clan. The best way I can describe it is that my wife and I got run over by the sick truck. On Friday, I was fully intending to preach on Sunday. I still had a fair amount of work to do on my sermon, but I had Saturday to work on it—or so I was thinking. Friday evening, I wasn't feeling well, and by Saturday, I was on the phone with one of my fellow elders, asking if he would mind preaching for me the next day. He's a retired
Joshua Van Vlack
Feb 182 min read
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
Feb 102 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
Blog: Blog2
bottom of page