July, 2016 - Stone The Preacher

Breaking Good

Jul 28, 2016Steve SanchezPastor's P.O.V.AMC, breaking bad, breaking good, God is good, jesse pinkman, methamphetamine, trust, walter white

50-year-old Walter White was having a mid-life crisis: His wife was pregnant, his teenage son has Cerebral Palsy; and, as an under-achieving educational professional, he faced a huge financial disaster when he was diagnosed with lung cancer.

That’s the premise of “Breaking Bad,” the highly rated drama based on the American Nightmare. This is the tale of a man who takes matters into his own hands when the going gets tough.

On a whim, Walter goes on a ride-a-long with his D.E.A. agent brother-in-law and witnesses a meth bust. When he finds out how much money can be made in the drug business, this mild-mannered chemistry teacher “breaks bad” by becoming a methamphetamine chemist.

Ultimately, everyone he knows is negatively affected by his bad choices and deceitful ways made out of desperation, made without God.

What would you do if you were in his shoes? He’s always played by the rules, has always done life the right way, but, now, he’s been dealt a lousy hand.

Our Gay Waiter’s “Good” News

Jul 21, 2016Steve Sanchez7 CommentsGay communitygay, gospel, homosexual, lesbian, preach, pride

“REPENT YOU WICKED PASTOR!” This was just one of many Facebook comments I received when I posted an account of what happened at the Cheesecake Factory in Austin on July 6.

My wife and I were celebrating our 20^th anniversary when our waiter, Trey, announced that he, too, had some good news: He was getting married! I asked who the lucky girl was and he said it wasn’t a girl.

How would you respond? What would you say to him? What I said to our waiter brought down a storm of fury and fire on social media: “You are WICKED! Yahweh rebuke you! The Lord Jesus Christ rebuke you devils! You are an abomination! He hates with Holy Wrath.”

No Longer a Stranger in a Strange Land

Jul 17, 2016Steve SanchezABOUT ME, MY BLOG, MY CHURCH, Community Church of the Hillschurch plant, community church of the hills, johnson city texas, pastor, preaching, texas

I preached my first sermon at Community Church of the Hills one year ago last Sunday, July 10, 2015.

Never, in a million years did I ever expect to be pastoring a church in the middle of Texas, especially since I’m a native born—ahem—guy from the west coast, from the second largest city in America. (Is that vague enough?)

Oh, but what a wonderful change!

I didn’t move to Texas like other Californians because of huge profits from the sale of their homes and getting double—triple—the value in the Lone Star State. I didn’t move as some sort of left-wing conspiracy to change the political climate of this Red State (I’m a conservative). I didn’t even move here as a protest against the Golden State and its strange brew of crazy, nonsensical, burdensome, ridiculous tax and social laws.

No, I came for one reason and one reason only: God called me.

I didn’t hear any voices, no angel trumpeted from Heaven nor did a lightning bolt strike a special place in my Bible. A series of circumstances aligned themselves together to cause me to pray about uprooting my family, leaving a church where I had been an associate pastor for fifteen years, abandoning a pension that I would receive in just five years, and, of course, saying goodbye to everything familiar, including family and friends.

The Most Famous Sermon Ever Preached

Jul 8, 2016Steve Sanchez1 CommentHIStorygospel, heaven, hell, jonathan edwards, preaching, sermon, sinners in the hands of an angry God

On this day in 1741, the future president of Princeton College preached the most famous American sermon ever in Northhampton, Massachusetts. Many listeners responded in this way: “What shall I do to be saved? Oh, I am going to Hell.” Some crowded toward the pulpit begging the preacher to stop. At one point in the