Posts Tagged With: community
Who Needs Church? part 2
There seems to be a movement these days to separate spirituality from community. As if a personal, private encounter Christ is better than dealing with others at church. Nothing could be further from the truth. We were made to live in community, to practice the skills of forgiveness, grace and love and in the process [...]
Who Needs Church? part 1
Church is born out of forgiveness, grace and love. Not just flowing from Jesus to you, but from you into others! The Church then is a conduit, an overlap of Heaven and Earth in which the prayer “Thy Kingdom come, on earth as it is in Heaven” is fulfilled, at least temporarily. Is this conduit [...]
Adding to the Story
I just returned home from a weekend of spiritual reflection and renewal with some challenging thoughts. We did an exercise where we were asked to draw a picture of OUR spiritual journey. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, put your thousand word journey of spiritual growth in a pictorial representation. My initial thought was [...]
Kingdom Focused: Link in Community
This is a copy of an invitation sent out to people who have visited our church in the last 9 months but who for reasons unknown have drifted away. It is a simple way to invite a dialog if they so choose. During summer most people like to slow down and relax a bit. Me, [...]
Holy Communion
As early as the Emmaus experience on the day of Resurrection, recorded in Luke 24:13-35, Christians recognized the presence of Jesus Christ in the breaking of bread. The traditional Jewish practice of taking bread, blessing and thanking God, and breaking and sharing the bread took on new meaning for them. When followers of Christ [...]
The Power of Change Part 6
THE POWER OF C-H-A-N-G-E Part 1 – Connect I’ve always heard that religion is about reformation. But Christianity is about transformation. Those two things are not the same. The former is about what a person can do to make self-improvements – Ladder People. The latter is about a person totally yielding to the Person of [...]
Building a Better Church: Connections
I spoke to a man the other day who does market research (focus groups and interviews) with a wide range of people: what they like and don’t like; what they think and feel about various things. He said that overwhelmingly what people want more than anything else is belonging: to fit in and be accepted; [...]
A Better You & Me
Leo Tolstoy once said: “Everyone thinks of changing the world, no one thinks of changing himself.” God wants to do greater things in our community and in our church, but He also wants greater things in our homes, and in our marriages, in our families, in our finances, and in our future. It has to [...]
30 Hour Famine Team
Beginning Friday morning at 8:00 am, members and friends of the First United Methodist Church Family will come together to fast and pray for all those who suffer and die from hunger and hunger related diseases. We do this as an act of submission, trusting God to work within us a passion to do all [...]
Welcome to the 2011 National Day of Prayer
Opening Statements: The prayers of God’s people in the Bible were offered at all hours, in every season and in every circumstance of human life. These prayers bear witness to the reality that a life of faith is built upon a heart of prayer. WHY PRAY? 1. We pray because we recognize that there [...]
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