Well, we've started in on the Gospel of Mark and I hope you're excited to be back in the gospels. Mark is the only one of the four gospel writers to call his book a gospel (which means 'Good News'), but he didn't invent the word. It was used in the common language of the time, and it meant that some history-making, life-shaping event had happened, and a messenger has come ...

Wow! So much starts in September. Just in our church, this month we'll be starting new Sunday School classes, new Community Groups, new Bible Studies, new Joy Groups, new Men's and Women's Ministry events, etc., etc., etc. I mean, there's like 500 bulletin inserts this week (good luck with those). On top of that we're having ministry testimonies each week, and this Sunday ...

Have you ever met someone and, after spending some time with them, you thought, "they just know God much better than I do" or maybe it was "that guy prays at a whole different level than I do" or perhaps even "you know, she loves God in a way that I've never felt"? I've met a few people like that and have always left them wondering how that nearness to God, knowledge of Go...

Hey everyone, there's only a week until school is back in session. If you're like us, your kids are trying out for sports teams, you're buying back-to-school clothes and supplies, getting schedules straight, and getting in those last couple trips to the pool. Speaking of getting things in, now that we're done with our sermon series in Jeremiah and looking to delve into the...

This week we are embarking on a new sermon series. We'll be spending the next 3 weeks talking about the mission of the church. As a church, we seem to be in a season of planning, examination, and evaluation. The session has met for several extra meetings as we continue to work through the information that we gathered from those listening sessions at the community groups la...

We’ve made it. After 38 weeks, we’ve come to the end of our series in Jeremiah. Let me tell you that this has been a challenging book for the pastors and elders to preach on. It seems like we’ve spent last 11 months or so looking passages where Jeremiah calls out sin and pronounces judgment. There have been glimpses of grace here and there throughout, but it’s ...

This past Friday I had the pleasure of making the 7 ½ hour drive down to Santee, South Carolina to take part in my stepmother's 80th birthday celebration. Then on Sunday, I had the same pleasure of making the return trip home. Please don't misunderstand me, the party itself was great and spending time with my dad and stepmother was wonderful. It was the dr...

Years ago, I was once playing golf with a co-worker when he began to go on a 10-minute tirade about his problems with the contractor adding a huge patio to the back of his luxury home in a gated community. I remember thinking at the time something along the lines of "first world problem" and not having much sympathy for him. People in the third world were worrying about th...

One of our children has not seen many of the Marvel movies, so her siblings and I are guiding her through the movies. The big question (which is also the question for those wanting to catch up on the Star Wars films) is: do you watch them by release date or by chronological order? We've decided to go chronologically, so we've started with the first Captain America movie se...

Have you ever had to make a hard decision, not knowing how it would turn out? You weigh all the pros and cons, get counsel from others, try to figure out what the result will look like, and then make the decision. And something goes horribly wrong. Usually, it's due to what we call "unintended consequences." After you made the decision, something happened that you either d...