New Trails Ministry
11455 Elliot Road
Custer, SD 57730
Custer, SD 57730
Phone: 605-760-3633
Email: info@newtrailsministry.org
Email: info@newtrailsministry.org
New Trails offers three, five or ten day sabbaticals that are customized to your needs, are designed to help you reconnect with God who has called you to service and can assist you in recovering that joy. As a long term ministry couple, we know firsthand the joys and challenges of full time service, and combined with our wilderness locations we provide the place, space and direction to assist you in creating the space to recover your passion for ministry.
You Are Not Alone
/in General /by Rod VeldhuizenI am not sure if you know who Ed Stetzer is? I know he doesn’t know me, but I follow him in Twitter. (It is true you can teach an old dog new tricks) Ed is the Executive Director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. A short time ago he tweeted about a… | Read More
Self Care is Not Being Selfish
/in General /by Rod VeldhuizenIt was a normal run of the mill board meeting, something I had done repeatedly over the past number of years. However, as we neared the end of my agenda, one of my board members, noted he was attending a seminar and part of the topic was self-care. After listening to my list of activities… | Read More
The Sousaphone of God’s Unchanging Love
/in General /by Rod VeldhuizenI came across and article in Christianity Today Pastor’s newsletter, where the author described his time in the High School marching band. Because he was a tuba player, he also had to learn to play the Sousaphone. I too spent time in the marching band, however, I played a trombone, so walking or sitting, it… | Read More
God Wants You all to Himself
/in General /by Rod VeldhuizenBy now you know that New Trails is located in a remote area of the Black Hills of South Dakota. I have also given some rationale as to why this is important and vital to what we do. However, I recently read a blog from a man who has served as a mentor to me,… | Read More
The Easiest Job in the World!
/in General /by Rod VeldhuizenEugene Peterson in his book, Working the Angles, states “Being the kind of pastor that satisfies a congregation is one of the easiest jobs on the face of the earth….” Let me let that hang for a minute before I add the context. Being a pastor who satisfies a congregation is one of the easiest… | Read More
Avoiding Marriage Madness
/in General /by Rod VeldhuizenIt seems that every March we encounter a phenomenon known as March Madness. We arrange our brackets, hoping we have picked the perfect set of teams to predict the Final Four in college basketball. If you are a basketball fan, you know well the agony of a “busted bracket”. This year I heard that the… | Read More
Of Old Sayings and New Thinking….
/in General /by Rod VeldhuizenThere is an old saying about ministers and professors, “Those who can do, and those who can’t teach.” I suppose this could be said about any profession. With any saying like this one there is an element of truth, as well as some overstatement. As I have moved into that stage of my life and… | Read More
A Desk is a Dangerous Place from which to watch the world…
/in General /by Rod Veldhuizen“A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.” –John Le Carre I wonder if you have ever given that much thought? I haven’t, until today. Most of my life in pastoral ministry has been spent behind a desk, behind a phone, in a class room, or behind a pulpit! However, there… | Read More
A New Trail of Vitality
/in General /by Rod VeldhuizenAs we begin our second year of serving at New Trails it has prompted some thinking and possible revisioning of why we exist and what we do. When I began to dream about this ministry, the statistics about a high rate of ministry drop outs was filling my focus. As time has gone on I… | Read More
Living with Death
/in General /by Rod VeldhuizenThat is some title isn’t it! But read on, you never know where this will end. By now you know that I have some eclectic reading habits. I read ‘junk novels’ for pleasure. I read a variety of religious journals and articles. I read about Fire Fighter related concerns and then I dabble in leadership… | Read More