Bret Hammond

It had been a late night and an early morning. Sitting at the breakfast table with my friends, bleary-eyed, and wading through another cup of coffee, I confessed, "Look, I'm barely here. If you have anything important to say, you're going to need to repeat it, like, three times." My exhaustion was a convenient excuse, but we would all have to confess that we don't always pay attention. But I was r...

Everyone has their own heroes from the Bible. When we're young, the boys choose David and dream of fighting off giants. Maybe the girls choose Esther and know that part of their beauty is the conviction to stand for what's right. Daniel inspires our faithfulness; Mary reminds us that God uses unexpected people for his purposes. Whomever you've chosen as your biblical hero, you have found something...

Tucked in the middle of the movie, The Passion of the Christ is a scene that I find my mind going back to again and again. Jesus has been beaten bloody and carries his cross through the streets of Jerusalem. The weight of the wood, the exhaustion of the beating, and the blood in his eyes from the crown of thorns suddenly become too much for him. He collapses to the ground, the cross pinning him th...

I’ve appeared in court on three different occasions. I was called to be a witness all three times, compelled to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And, on all three occasions, I did precisely that. The first two times, I was there to testify to the character of the defendants, or a lack thereof. I did not enjoy either of those appearances. But the last time I was called to...

Lyn Marshall was one of those people I would never have known if it weren't for the church. The first few times we talked, we seemed so different from each other. But, then, on a long car ride to visit her sick mother, we bonded over a mutual love of The Moody Blues. And when she told me about how she met Vincent Furnier (maybe better known to you as "Alice Cooper"), I was sold! This was one cool...

Some churches have a long-held tradition of placing salt on the tongues of newly baptized believers and giving them a lit candle to remind them they are "the salt of the earth and the light of the world." I love the symbolism and the message it sends. It's not, "Go out there and try to be the salt of the earth," or "You better make sure you keep your light shining!" Instead, with commitment fresh...

One of my first roles in the church was as a shepherd. I don't mean that in a pastoral sense, but rather in a Christmas pageant sense. In Junior High, for our church's live nativity, I was one of the three guys chosen to play shepherds. I had the headgear (one of mom's tea towels wrapped around my head), a staff (a stick with a bent clothes hanger duct taped to one end), and an old bathrobe. The o...

The most frequently used designation for Christians in the Bible is the word "Brother." It appears over 250 times in the book of Acts and the Epistles. So while you and I call ourselves Christians and speak of ourselves in groups as churches, the Bible shows us, again and again, that we cannot understand what it means to be a follower of Jesus without the concept of family. We often worry about th...

Dad said I was named for one of his favorite westerns. Mom said she picked my name because it worked well with my brother's. I like dad's story better, but whether the name had meaning or they just liked the sound of it, I'm stuck with it. There are far worse names to be stuck with. For example, in the Bible, the prophet Hosea has a son named "Lo-Ammi," Hebrew for "Not my people." Can you imagine...

The anniversary came and went with barely a notice last week. This past Friday marked eleven years since the fire that destroyed our old building. I looked through the pictures and thought about how far we've come and how many things have changed. The last couple of pictures from that day were of the destruction of the few walls still standing. Those walls had once brought us closer to God and eac...

Nothing was ever quite good enough for the old man. So he often “improved” items by adding a few new parts. There was the wire running from the TV across the living room, and dangling a speaker next to his chair, so he didn’t have to walk across the room to turn it up (if only he could have invented a remote back then). Extra handles on his old boat made it easier to transport. And, of course, som...

Robin Hood was my favorite. As a kid, it was just bows and arrows, good guys and bad guys; I didn't understand the setting or conflict that gave birth to the story. Good King Richard is off fighting, and miserable Prince John is in charge. Robin and his band of Merry Men remained loyal to the king, even though he was absent. They held to the true king's standards and fought to maintain his kingdom...

Life for the fatherless was difficult in the ancient world. Children were often left with no recourse but to beg, and it could be far worse for widows. Again and again, in the Bible, we read commands like the one found in Zechariah 7:10, "do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart." God's heart is with the fat...

The Detroit-Windsor Tunnel connects the United States to Canada by traveling nearly a mile under the Detroit River. When we popped out of the tunnel on the Canadian side, my friends, Mark and Kimm, turned to me in the backseat and said (in unison), “Bret, when the guards stop us at the gate, keep your mouth shut.” I’m still not exactly sure what they thought I was going to say. But it was imperati...

My Tuesday evenings are a little more lonely these days. Like many of you, for the last six years, I spent Tuesday evenings with the Pearson family enjoying the series "This Is Us." I marveled at how the writers pulled stories together, wondered about the cause of Jack's death, was firmly Team Toby (right up until I wasn't), and watched Rebecca slowly slip away. (I guess I should have warned you a...

It's hard to find one word that describes my feelings this past week. "Stunned," maybe. "Shocked," definitely. "Grieving," again. There's been too much to grieve and too little time to mourn it properly. We're all hurting for the families of Robb Elementary School and the community of Uvalde. When I chose to preach from Micah today, I had no idea how it would resonate with the week we've been thro...

Our friend Kendal challenged several of us to a scavenger hunt. My brother-in-law and I were confident we could win! As soon as we had the instructions in hand, we took off in his truck to search the countryside for the prize. After getting stuck in a ditch and relying on the kindness of a farmer to pull us out, we were curious as to why none of our competitors had come along after us. Were we tha...

I begin every morning by asking Siri to tell me the news, and every news report begins with the war in Ukraine. I hear of attacks on "humanitarian corridors," peace talks that never produce fruit, the bombing of civilians, and sanctions that seem to move too slowly. I wish I could tell you that I follow every news report with a time of prayer on my knees, but I confess that many times I shake my h...

The words "mother" and "mercy" seem to go together naturally. I see the connection as I watch my daughter hold my granddaughter; I see it as I watch Trish get Connor ready for school in the mornings. For many, mothers are their first experience of the blessing of mercy. But, in a parable where Jesus explained what mercy looks like, he didn't choose a mother as the merciful one but a complete stran...

There was a commercial on TV when I was a child. I don't remember what they were selling, but it was a scene of an old well pump on a farm and a voice reciting Matthew 5:6, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled." Whenever the commercial came on, I would think, "I don't know what righteousness is, but it must be hard work. You're hungry and thirs...

I just did a quick search on Twitter for "#Blessed." Among the results were: - A pool party for someone's grandson. - Before and after pictures from a diet. - The results of a soccer match. - And someone was celebrating finally hitting 500 followers on Twitter. #blessed indeed! When we count our blessings, we calculate the positive things that lift us up and make us feel valued—and we should! But...

"That which is of first importance." It's buttoning the top button so the others line up correctly. It's the flight check before take-off. It's the surgeon marking the spot for surgery. When we put that which is of first importance first, everything else falls in line. In 1 Corinthians 15:3, Paul writes, "For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received." He then details the deat...

"Hosanna!" It's an ancient word that meant "Save me!" If a fisherman fell overboard, he would shout, "Hosanna!" with his last few breaths, hoping to be saved. The fact that the crowds welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem shouted "Hosanna!" ought to remind us that the Easter story is not for people who've got it all together. It's for the hurting, hopeless, and those barely holding on. The Easter story i...

I was driving home the other day when I noticed it again. As the utility poles passed by, I couldn't help but catch the shape of the cross. Has that happened to you? Maybe you see the cross in the panels of a door, the mast of a ship, or just two pieces of wood that happen to fall together right. Something within us seems drawn to the cross; its image is ever before us. In a moment of wry humor, w...

A friend of mine called to tell me of a possible cancer diagnosis he was facing. He said he felt far from God and wondered if he should read through the book of Job in the Bible. Of course, when we think of Job, we think of his suffering and patience. But what of Job's hope? And what of his Easter?