Church Life
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Preparing to Have Joy
The little book of Habakkuk is one that is rarely studied, but that I greatly enjoy. The message of the book is one that is timeless. I am preparing to teach for several weeks on this book, and so I’ve been trying to do some reading and studying. Though I have taught the book before, there is still more preparation to do, because this book contains so many nuggets of truth. One of those is something that you may have noticed and found quite obvious before, but that my brain just had not registered. It is at the very end of the book, as the prophet Habakkuk writes his beautiful…
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All of the Bible or Just the Red Letters?
From time to time I am asked the question, “Do we really need to consider the entire Bible as authoritative, or is it just the words of Jesus?” If you have a modern English translation you probably have sections of it that are printed in red. The red portions depict the words of Christ. From a merely human standpoint, one might understand that words coming from the sinless Son of God might carry more weight than the words of fallible men. But in reality, the red letters are not more important than any of the other words of the Bible. Here are a few reasons why: 1. All the Bible…
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KGOY
Not long ago, I was introduced to a new (at least for me) acronym – KGOY. I learned that those letters now mean, in some circles, Kids Growing Older Younger. One variation of this is Kids Getting Older Younger. I found the following information online at cruxresearch.com. The article was entitled “Are Kids Getting Older Younger?” The first two paragraphs state that: There is a lot of talk today about kids getting older younger. You hear this described as “Developmental Compression” by academics. The concept is so ingrained in youth marketing that it is often referred to as an acronym – KGOY (this is not a west coast radio station!). Like many presumptions,…
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Polishing the Pulpit 2018 is Almost Here!
I was sitting and contemplating what I could write for my post this week. All I could think about was the studying I needed to be doing for the lessons I am presenting at Polishing the Pulpit. Then it hit me – why not just write about PtP! I’m sure most of you know what this gathering is, but if you haven’t had the privilege of attending, or even if you have attended, I would like to share some of my thoughts with you about this great event. 1. PtP is a gathering of people of “like, precious faith” — lots of people. We tend to call it “a little taste of heaven” in…
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It’s Often the Smallest Thing
A group in Germany was close to a new Guinness world record, when it all came tumbling down. Literally. The group of 20 people was attempting to break the record for toppling the most mini-dominoes. These dominoes are about the size of a fingernail and, as such, take a great deal of care to set up in those long lines. Over the course of about two weeks, the group had set up over 600,000 of these tiny dominoes and were very close to their record-breaking attempt. When a fly landed on one of the dominoes, toppling virtually the entirety of their work. [Source] A fly! Can you imagine the frustration? There…
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The Church in the Wildwood
Maybe you remember a hymn in the songbook in the back of the pew in front of you entitled “Church in the Wildwood.” If you do recall it, this means right at this very moment your brain is streaming, “oh-oh, come…come…come…come…” Yes, that’s the song! I remember thinking there is absolutely nothing biblical about this hymn. It’s about going down to a little brown church in the dale. Haven’t we preached over and over again that the church is the people and not a place? And aren’t we supposed to keep ourselves from being tied to a building? That being said, this article is actually a tribute to the churches…
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Heads Up
I was asked to speak recently on a Wednesday Series at one of our sister congregations. The assigned topic was pretty straightforward. I was asked to speak on “Elders and Deacons.” While this was fairly straightforward, it was also a challenge. How does one deal with this topic in forty-five minutes? As I prepared, it seemed to me that there was no way to adequately deal with my assignment in the allotted time. It would take at least forty-five minutes to do an adequate word study of those two words and to point out how those two words have been misunderstood by many people. I tried to do a little of that in the time…
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Pieces of My Heart
“Making the decision to have a child – it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ” – Elizabeth Stone The idea for this post came from my tweet last week when I returned from Mexico. What I tweeted at that point was: “Home from Mexico. Left pieces of my heart there but thankful to be back to the ones here who hold the largest chunks!” Then a little earlier this week, I watched two pieces of my heart drive off to the high school – one to his last first day of public school and the other to a new…
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A Simple Challenge: Greet Someone New This Sunday
It really does not matter how large or small the congregation is where you worship, there is someone who will be in worship this Sunday that either you have never met or you have not talked with in a long while. I’m challenging all of us–including myself–greet that person this week! Maybe it means you talk with someone who isn’t in your age group. It could be mean an older Christian walking up to a member who comes in on a cane, or an older Christian speaking to that young couple who is still struggling to get going in life. Maybe it means you talk with someone who is just,…
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3 Things That Are Above Personal Religious Opinion
It seems like everyone has an opinion these days about anything and everything. I don’t know why our opinions seem to matter so much more than they used to, but I think it has something to do with this sense of entitlement everyone has about loving themselves and doing whatever they want to do. When I was younger, I don’t remember hearing so much about tolerance and self-love. I do recall being told much more about love for God and pleasing Him and being obedient to His word. I do believe that opinions are important and that people have a right to them individually. We will always do ourselves a…
