Get Connected as a Family
Monday, November 3rd, 2008First, an invitation: everyone is invited to join together in prayer at the church every Wednesday from 1:15-2:15. It’s during this prayer meeting that I am frequently moved to see how many of our members are requesting prayer for their parents, children, relatives, coworkers, friends, and neighbors. Often I find myself praying not only for [...]
Get Connected in Submission to Our Leaders
Sunday, October 19th, 2008I look at people who write letters and thank-you notes and send birthday cards on time with envy, desiring to be a better friend and encourager. The apostle Paul was a great letter writer. Sure, much of our doctrine comes from his letters, but you can tell from them that Paul was pretty good [...]
Get Connected Through Participation
Thursday, October 9th, 2008We have a great opportunity to get connected through participation this fall. Our upcoming Christmas program will combine choirs, children through adults, to share the message of Jesus’ birth through music and song. There will be several portions sharing the message through drama. This program is planned to be performed over several evenings, and there [...]
Get Connected in Submission to Each Other
Monday, September 22nd, 2008Perhaps the biggest obstacle to unity, whether in the family, in the church, or in any community, is our tendency for selfishness. We all have different wants and needs, some good, some bad, some legitimate, and others… not so much. When our individual wants and needs come in conflict with the wants and needs [...]
Get Connected For a Purpose
Monday, August 25th, 2008Back-to-school time is kind of like my New Year’s Day. Ever since I was a child, I’ve always thought in the terms of a school year. So, with a new year comes renewed purpose.
For the past year, I’ve been focusing on the idea that the church is the body of Christ. And just like any [...]
Get Connected Through Knowledge
Monday, August 11th, 2008I don’t think my kids are looking forward to going back to school as much as Sandi and I are, but I love this time of year. I love school and the whole educational process, and I believe that it’s one of the central points of what we do within the church.
Paul makes this pretty [...]
Get Connected in Confession
Monday, July 28th, 2008The current sermon series “Real Revival” has been kind of dangerous, in the sense that it brings up issues that we might rather leave alone, that it focuses attention on things that make us uncomfortable, that it calls attention to the places where we fall short as individuals and as a body. But that’s probably [...]
Get Connected Within Your Heart
Monday, June 30th, 2008What a great week of VBS! Not only did I get to wear all of my Hawaiian shirts and grill all week, but I got to connect with all kinds of people, kids through adults, as we focused on God’s Truth. The core of the week was based on Psalm 86:11, which says: “Teach me [...]
Get Connected Through the Name
Monday, June 16th, 2008At the end of June, Sandi and I will be taking the kids to Pennsylvania to my parents’ home for a family reunion. We get to go to PA maybe twice each year, and so we don’t get to see my folks or other relatives very often. But one nice thing about a family reunion [...]
Get Connected in Holiness
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008Many people outside the church accuse Christians of being hypocrites. Technically, hypocrisy is a matter of professing a set of beliefs that you don’t really believe. However, our culture—and many Christians—believes that hypocrisy is a matter of saying one thing and doing another, being two-faced. While that might seem like splitting hairs, the subtle difference [...]
Get Connected with New Clothes
Monday, May 12th, 2008Since I was diagnosed to be diabetic in September 2007, I’ve had to watch what I eat. As a result, some of my clothes are becoming so baggy that I will need to replace them soon. (As a side note, thanks to everyone for the encouragement along the way—keep it up!) Oddly enough, as thrilled [...]
Get Connected Through the Truth
Monday, April 28th, 2008The sermon series that we are going through right now, “Life360,” has been exciting to preach. The sermon on April 27 dealt with “Faith: Broadband Beliefs,” the idea that our faith is developed when we hear, read, and study the Bible and then live it out. The exciting part of that sermon was the realization [...]
Get Connected in Prayer
Monday, April 14th, 2008I’m not good at relationships, but I’m getting better. How do I know? Well, God and I communicate a lot more than we did before, and more and more frequently, we communicate about other people.
I suspect that my prayer life has been a lot like most people’s: about my needs, when I have needs. But [...]
Get Connected Through Membership
Monday, March 31st, 2008For some reason, church membership is a tough topic. Reading the New Testament, it seems the early church understood that when you become a Christian, you are a “member” of the church. Just as when a child is born he becomes part of the family, when a person is “reborn” they become part of the [...]
Get Connected by Giving
Monday, March 17th, 2008I hate money. While I enjoy the pleasures that come from what money can buy (as my indulgences in coffee, dining out, and computers will testify), there’s just too much effort that must go into making money, tracking money, and even spending money. I know that there’s more than a bit of laziness in my [...]
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