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Peace, Perfect Peace
If you’re like me, sometimes peace is hard to find. You would think that as a retired woman I would have plenty of time, fewer worries, less deadlines to meet, and be able to just do what I want to do resulting in peace in my life. You couldn’t be more wrong. I still have a lot of activities in my life. Along with the usual daily chores – doing laundry, cleaning house, buying groceries, cooking meals, organizing closets, etc. – I seem to be busy with lots of other things like writing, studying, praying, teaching Bible classes, mentoring young women, hosting guests in our home, counseling those who are…
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Death by Caveat
I was at a preachers’ retreat a few years ago and taking part in a group discussion. We were simply supposed to answer a few questions then share our answers with the full group. One of the questions was something like this: “What is one of the biggest challenges to preaching the truth publicly?” While there were a few thoughts in our group, my favorite was given by a preaching friend from Arkansas who said, “Caveats.” The longer I preach, the more I agree with that statement. Caveats are those statements where you have to explain what you don’t mean or why you are not doing something. Certainly, there can…
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All Things are Ready
[The following was written over a year ago now and has been revised only slightly. I know I’m the author, but in my estimation, it is just as necessary today as it was at the first, at least for me.] It’s been a long time since I read the Bible and was genuinely afraid. It happened today. In Luke 14, Jesus was at a dinner party with the Pharisees. To careful readers of Luke’s Gospel, this should come as a bit of a shock; the narrative all the way back into Luke 11 has been marked by hostility towards Jesus on the part of the Pharisees and stern but truthful…
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A Candidate for the World’s Most Clueless Husband (and a Rebuttal)
As Mothers Day approaches, I am reminded of a conversation I had with a lady during which she mentioned her late father-in-law. Somehow the subject of retirement came up. During that part of the conversation, she related to me something he had told his wife when he retired. The following may not be a word-for-word quote, but it is pretty close: Now, I’ll get to do what you’ve been doing all these years I’ve been working – absolutely nothing. My first reaction (which I think I might have actually said aloud) was that surely no man could be that clueless. Actually “clueless” might be the polite version of what I…
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Churches, Learn From–but Stop Blaming–Covid
It’s been five years. Five years ago from the publication date of this post, the world was still basically shut down. Though a few things in a few places were starting to try to open up again, the world was a very different place. Churches were not immune to those changes. Every congregation was navigating waters that were very odd. (So, please, do not read the rest of this article as if I am saying that covid wasn’t real or that leaders didn’t do the best they could!) But read that first line again: it’s been five years. Are there lessons that congregations should have learned during 2020? Of course.…
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Do You Know My Jesus?
The mood must have been tense that Sunday afternoon. Very few people had fully grappled with what had happened just days before, and it didn’t help that more rumors about more strange events that morning were starting to spread. Everyone was emotionally exhausted, everyone was physically exhausted, and nobody knew if there would be more innocents targeted by the mob’s fury, or who would be next if there were. It’s no wonder Cleopas and his friend decided to get out of dodge. After all, things hadn’t always been this bad. Just a week ago there was rejoicing in the streets over this great Prophet of the people. For years, His…
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Property Poor Church Members
I recently came across an article in a religious periodical published in 1918. The title of that article was the same as the title for this post. The article mentions a man who served as an elder in a local congregation who owned a great deal of property. According to a statement he made, the value of his property was $160,000. His weekly contribution to the local congregation of which he was a member was seventy-five cents! When this man was encouraged to increase his contribution, he said that he could not do that because he was “property poor.” He even claimed that his financial “stress” made it necessary for…
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Into the Heart of the Bible, Episode 015
This week, Leah overviewed the Period of Captivity, and included a brief but interesting study of the difference in the terms “Hebrews,” “Israelites,” and “Jews.” Watch the video below or click here to view on YouTube.
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The Future of the Church
You guessed it! I have just spent this last weekend with about 10,000 other people at the Opryland Hotel in Nashville for the Lads to Leaders/Leaderettes Convention. And what a busy (and crowded) weekend it was! There were all kinds of schedules to remember, preparations to be made, outfits to be selected, practices for events, and the list goes on and on. It was a little chaotic and tiring, but at the same time it was just wonderful! Gathering with so many other Christians for the purpose of spiritual growth and encouraging that growth can only be described as wonderful. Since our congregation actually does the year-round program, so many…
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A Spiritual Lesson from a Dying Phone Battery
For some time now, I’ve been dealing with a phone on its last legs. (Update: after brainstorming this article, I was able to get a new phone. Whew.) If you’ve ever had to deal with that, you know that it can be frustrating. The phone would seem to be fine. The battery clipping along near 100%…until it wasn’t. In rapid succession, I’d get a notification that it was at something like 14%, then (one second later) 7%, then…dead. The other issue was that, if it got to zero, it took hours to charge back up. Once it was, I had to keep it basically plugged in non-stop so the battery…
