Thank you for checking out this web site. Several years ago, when I was chaplain at a psychiatric hospital, I had a young 16 year old atheist approach me after one of my groups. He said, “Bart, do you know the thing I don’t like about your groups?” I was a bit taken back and I said, “No.” He said, “You make me think!”—Three months later, having been discharged from the hospital, he got into an argument with his father, went down to his basement and hung himself. I don’t cry easily, but I wept when I heard the news. I thought, “If only there was something I could have said or done to have reach him.” —This is one of the reasons for this web site: to not only make people think, but to hopefully reach them with the news that there is help and hope. There is a God who knows and loves us. With God there is always help and hope.

Out of the hundreds of groups I lead at the psych hospital, working with literally hundreds of adolescents and adults, all the way from atheists, to agnostics, to Satanists, to gang members, to addicts, to abuse victims, to people with major depression, I wrote a booklet entitled “Belief In A God You Can’t See.” [You can download it for free under the booklets for atheists and agnostics.] The response to that booklet has been overwhelmingly positive. It has sold several thousand copies and has been translated into several other languages. I have seen that literature, for those who will take time to read, is one of the best ways to reach a vast number of people. I try to write from the heart, yet appeal to the mind. As one person expressed, “It is hard for the heart to embrace that which the mind rejects.”—God speaks to both our hearts and our minds.

I hope you will find what I have written to be non-judgmental and grace filled. Without apology, I do challenge you to think, to investigate the claims of Christ, and to embrace the truth, even if it costs you everything—and for some of you it may. We all live one breath and one heartbeat from eternity. In the end, it doesn’t really matter what cards life has dealt us here on earth, as long as we are eternally at peace with God when we die. I hope you will toss out with a grain of salt the things not pertinent to you, and embrace the truth you do find. As Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” (John 8:32).

For those wishing to know a little about me, I grew up in Kansas. I became a Christian through Topeka Youth For Christ while in high school. Most of my growth as a believer in Christ came in college through Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship at Kansas State University. I have always gravitated toward groups and churches that are evangelical in theology, yet inter-denominational in flavor. I have yet to find a church that has a corner on all the truth. I find it healthy when Christians, who may not always agree on minor points of theology, can come together in oneness out of their love for Christ and their love for the scriptures and still worship together.

For 12 years I owned and managed Logos (Christian) Bookstores located near the campuses of the University of Nebraska and the University of Missouri. I worked in psychiatric hospitals for 10 years as chaplain, therapist, and/or in needs assessment (doing psychiatric admissions to the hospital). Since 1995 I have worked as a hospice chaplain [working with the terminally ill].

Besides my work as a chaplain, I have two passions. I love to write.—I coauthored a book with Josh McDowell on the deity of Christ entitled, “Jesus: A Biblical Defense Of His Deity.” (It is since out of print.) I have also published several other books and booklets. You can be download most of them off this web site. I also love photography. I now have several people I work with who help me sell and market a line of greeting cards, posters, and collector prints. I invite you to view my photography at: http://www.reflectionsofglory.com.

Over the years, having worked with such a huge diversity of people from all sorts of religious and cultural backgrounds, I have chose to write to each group personally. This is one of the things which makes this web site different from most web sites. For example, I don’t write about Islam. I write to Muslims. I don’t write about Satanism or Mormons, I write to Satanists and Mormons as people. I don’t write to attack, but to challenge. I want each of them to know how much I love them as people and respect their sincerely held beliefs, even though I disagree with those beliefs. In the end, what we believe should be a matter of truth, not sincerity. (There are times when we have all been sincere, but sincerely wrong.) I invite you to join me as a fellow seeker after truth, as friend to friend.

Between being a full time chaplain, writer, photographer, husband, and father, I confess that I don’t have much free time to answer a lot of emails. However, if you have sincere questions, comments, and/or criticisms either I or some friends of mine will try to respond. The convictions I hold have been arrived at through blood, sweat, and tears. I continue to learn and grow. Even if we have to lovingly agree to disagree, I hope I will have at least made you think.