Click through a collection of leadership and ministry blog posts!
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Flex
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Recently I saw a very cute picture. It was of a young boy standing with his arms bare and flexing his muscles. There were barely any muscles to see, mainly skinny little arms with a slight bump where his bicep was supposed to be. He had a huge smile…
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My Two Front Teeth
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Do you remember the old Christmas song called All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth? It was a cute little song where a young person who had lost their two front teeth wishes for those same teeth for the simple reason of wanting to whistle. Some…
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Around the Table
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Thanksgiving at my grandparents’ house was quite the event when all the cousins were there. Their small two-bedroom, one-bathroom home was creaking at the seams with all the people. There were wall-to-wall people all competing to be heard and seen. Grandma was unruffled as she went around talking to…
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Training Wheels
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president A fun event played out in my neighborhood recently. While unloading groceries in my driveway, I was delighted to see a young father walking carefully beside his young daughter. She was riding a small motorcycle. The little engine was idling along. She was fully equipped with all the riding…
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Labels
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Freshman year of college found me learning all about bulk mailing. The job was for the recruiting office at the college. My job was to prepare all the promotional mail going to prospective students. I was given the materials: the envelopes and the labels. I faithfully placed the labels…
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Never Spoil
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president This morning I was contemplating honey, as I usually have a bit of it each day in my herbal tea. It is one of my favorite things to add a bit of sweetness to things. My father and I had a beekeeping hobby for a few years, and I…
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Between Your Ears
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Did you know that currently there are 55 armed state sponsored conflicts going on in the world right now? We have certainly heard recently of the tragic war in Ukraine that continues to this day. We have also certainly heard of the tragic war in Israel as media is…
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Made for You
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Have you ever seen a performer who can spin plates? There on stage they set up their poles all in row. Then they start to spin plates on them. The goal is to see how many plates can be spinning at one time without crashing to the ground. Usually,…
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Open the Gate
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president There I sat in front of a closed gate. The keypad to enter the code to open the gate was right in front of me. The code was in my head. Confidently, I opened the window of my car and reached out to punch in the code. The gate…
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Rain has Returned
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president This week it happened. The pacific northwest rain returned.# It seems that one day it was summer, and the next day, at the official start of fall, the rain started. In many places it started with a downpour; others started with a drizzle. Most places in our…
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Hunger Map
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Have you ever looked at a hunger map? It is a map of the world that shows where there is the most hunger for food and the percentage of people in that part of the world who are undernourished. When I looked at it and saw a place where…
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God’s Collection
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president As a child running around the neighborhood with all the other neighborhood kids, we got into all sorts of things. There was a time when our main interest was digging in the dirt in a ditch close to our house. We had stumbled on the place because one of…
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Mind Games
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Have you ever played mind games? There are all sorts of them. There are harmless mind games where you have to figure things out. There are rooms where you can be locked in and have to use your brain to figure out all sorts of clues to escape the…
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Three Percent
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president 3% is not very much. Yet 3% is the number given when talking about fresh water. 70% of the planet is covered in water, yet only 3% of that water is fresh water. Even more interesting is that of the 3% of fresh water available, nearly two…
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Down a Dead End
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president We have a polite word for a street that ends with no exit available: cul-de-sac. I actually live on one. I grew up calling streets like that a dead end, and it is still my go-to word most of the time when I find myself on a…
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Angels in the Infield
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president A number of years ago, a movie came out called Angels in the Outfield. It was a feel-good movie about the failing California Angels baseball team that could never win a game. In the movie, a boy saw real angels who were ready and willing to help this struggling…
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Phubbing is Dangerous!
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Have you ever phubbed someone? The English language is always changing. New words are added all the time. Phubbing is one that caught my interest. Phubbing is defined as a person who interacts with their phone rather than with another human. In other words, you phub people by…
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What Effect Will You Have?
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Norman Borlaug. Heard of him? Newsweek Magazine gave him the title of Man of the Year. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970. Who was this man? Being from Kansas, I grew up surrounded by some of the results of his work in the wheat and corn…
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The Happy Pill
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president Do you ever get tired of the pharmaceutical advertisements you see on TV and social media? You know the ones where people are suffering from a medical condition, and they just can’t find relief? Sometimes the medical condition is something that I have never even heard off. Yet…
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Gorilla in the Picture
By Doug Bing, Washington Conference president There was an experiment conducted in 1999 where subjects were asked to watch a video and count the people dressed in white as they moved around a room while passing a ball back and forth. At a certain point in the video, a man dressed as a gorilla…