Tim Hall

Saturdays thought: December 6, 2025… She was either 8 or 9 year old!!! Sometimes you reminisce about life and whether you have helped anyone along the way. The other day I was doing just this… I was... View MoreSaturdays thought: December 6, 2025… She was either 8 or 9 year old!!! Sometimes you reminisce about life and whether you have helped anyone along the way. The other day I was doing just this… I was a little down feeling kind of depressed about some things… and was reminded of a couple of times when people mentioned something I preached 30 years ago. One of the things that blesses me ,as a preacher the most, Is 10-20 years after preaching when some one comes up to you tells you they remember a sermon you preached way back then. A pastor reminded me A couple weeks ago about a sermon I preached in his church in the mid 1990s and someone reminded of another sermon this week. My nephews wife Michelle Hall reminds me ever so often of a sermon I preached over 30 years ago. And sometime back a 8 or 9 year old girl came up to me after a service and showed me 8 pages of notes of what I had preached that night. This was a 8 or 9 year old think about that!!! Tim Hall

View Less

Struggling to survive How much money do you need to live on! If your household is struggling to pay the bills right now, you are far from alone. The cost of just about everything that Americans regu... View MoreStruggling to survive How much money do you need to live on! If your household is struggling to pay the bills right now, you are far from alone. The cost of just about everything that Americans regularly spend money on has been soaring, and as a result our standard of living has been steadily declining. Over the past couple of decades, our politicians borrowed and spent trillions of dollars that we did not have, the Federal Reserve shoveled giant mountains of money that were created out of thin air into the financial system, and our leaders treated the reserve currency of the world like toilet paper. So now the value of the U.S. dollar has gone way down, our paychecks don't stretch as far as they once did, and most of the country is barely scraping by from month to month. This week, an excellent article that was authored by Michael Green is getting a ton of attention. In that article, he calculates that a "basic needs budget" for a typical family of four in the United States would come to a grand total of $136,500 a year... I wanted to see what would happen if I ignored the official stats and simply calculated the cost of existing. I built a Basic Needs budget for a family of four (two earners, two kids). No vacations, no Netflix, no luxury. Just the "Participation Tickets" required to hold a job and raise kids in 2024. Using conservative, national-average data: Childcare: $32,773 Housing: $23,267 Food: $14,717 Transportation: $14,828 Healthcare: $10,567 Other essentials: $21,857 Required net income: $118,009 Add federal, state, and FICA taxes of roughly $18,500, and you arrive at a required gross income of $136,500. Do you agree with these figures? On the other hand, I think that his figure for housing is too low. The average home price in the U.S. now exceeds $500,000. Taking out a $500,000 mortgage at 6.2 percent would result in a mortgage payment of $3,047.41 a month. So Green's budget completely rules out owning a typical home in many areas of the country. Instead, it would allow for renting a two bedroom apartment which averages about $1,800 a month right now. And I think that Green's figure for health care is also too low. The average monthly health insurance premium for a family of four in the U.S. now exceeds $2,000. Yes, a hypothetical family of four could save money by going without health insurance or by living in a van, but that is not the point. It is time for everyone to admit that a middle class lifestyle has become out of reach for a majority of American households. Green's analysis may not be entirely accurate, but others have come up with similar results. For example, the Economic Policy Institute has determined that it takes approximately $123,000 a year for a family of four to live a middle class lifestyle in Essex County, New Jersey... The Economic Policy Institute offers a Family Budget Calculator. It says a family of four would need about $123,000 a year to attain "a modest yet adequate standard of living" in Essex County, New Jersey.

View Less

Fridays focus: December 5, 2025… Baseball's great Babe Ruth stated..“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” He struck out over a thousands times in his career, so he saw his fair share ... View MoreFridays focus: December 5, 2025… Baseball's great Babe Ruth stated..“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.” He struck out over a thousands times in his career, so he saw his fair share of swings and misses. He knew that each time he got a strike, or swung and missed the ball, he was one step closer to knocking it out of the park. This is easy to apply in life rather than baseball, because if you’re swinging you’re trying, you’re attempting to get that hit. And with enough swings and adjustments you’ll eventually make contact and get that home run you’re wanting. You can never get a home run if you don’t swing at the ball. Keep pursuing every day Keep pushing every day Keep praying everyday Tim Hall

View Less

Thursdays thought: December 4, 2025… Worth the read Look at this from the standpoint of us helping each other. ... View MoreThursdays thought: December 4, 2025… Worth the read Look at this from the standpoint of us helping each other. A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package. "What food might this contain?" The mouse wondered - he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap. Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning.... "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it." The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The pig sympathized, but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers." The mouse turned to the cow and said "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!" The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose." So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap alone. That very night a sound was heard throughout the house -- like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey. The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught. The snake bit the farmer's wife. The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever. Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient. But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbours came to sit with her around the clock. To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig. The farmer's wife did not get well; she died. So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them. The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness. So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn't concern you, remember -- when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life. We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another. How true is this! Author unknown Tim Hall

View Less

Wednesdays word: December 3, 2025… Life isn’t easy but keep pressing forward. Galatians 6:9 And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. Tim Hall