Jesus. Party Time. Excellent.
Jesus loved a good party. He was happy to be the guest of honor at Levi’s party. He demanded a party at Zacchaeus’ house. In his mind, the only proper response to finding what was lost (whether a coin, a sheep, or a son) is to party (“we had to celebrate” – Luke 15:32). He gave instructions on how to act at a party and then told a parable about one (Luke 14). His first miracle was to save a party (John 2)! I
Living In The World of Psalm 24
A guest blog by Shawn Blythe The reading for last week included Psalm 24. Although it immediately follows the most famous Psalm, apart from a verse or two made popular by a variety of worship songs, Psalm 24 is not one of my “go to” Psalms. It made me wonder what else I was missing right around Psalm 23. Psalm 22 is a plea for help in the midst of nearly unimaginable suffering. It is perhaps best known for containing a direct
The Toughest Person to Forgive
What a gorgeous day! Hopefully you can get out today and enjoy it a bit. First things first – this Monday is Memorial Day, and we’re marching in the parade again – so check out those details below.Last Sunday, we kicked off a new series on forgiveness called Easier Said Than Done. We heard about what forgiveness is, and why it truly is ‘easier said than done’. It costs a lot, as we learn to absorb the cost in forgiveness.
Unity Among Us
This morning at our men’s bible study, we kicked off a new study on Paul’s letter to the Romans. It’s a big letter, covering all manner of things – but the (easily overlooked) intention of the letter is what we spent the most time on today: The pivotal importance of the unity of the church. For the Romans, it was a matter of the Gentile Christians and the Jewish Christians learning not just to get along, but to love one another and
It’s Not the Chocolate that Matters
When I asked my sons, Luke and Jacob, what I should write about for this month's blog they began to rattle off a slew of silly things, then Luke said, “you should write about Wonka.” “Yeah! We just watched that at our Youth Group movie night, it’s perfect,” exclaimed Jacob. At first I chuckled as they continued their list of silly things. But I couldn’t shake it. It did seem perfect. Not just because we switched our movie at Central Youth’s movie
Called To Be…
A guest blog by Shawn Blythe. As we enter the book of Romans in our Bible readings, I am struck by one of the opening items in Paul’s greeting. He starts his letter with “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God”. In particular, I was drawn to Paul’s statement that he was “called” to be an apostle. Most of us know the story of Paul’s conversion and Christ’s direct intervention
Reflections on Dinner Church
As I discussed in last week’s email, last Sunday we had the privilege of visiting Dinner Church at First Baptist of Red Bank. If you missed that email, you can read it here, but essentially, Dinner Church is a ministry of FBC Red Bank where they put on two meals per week for anyone and everyone in town who is lacking for food and/or human connection. The hope is to form relationships with the attendees that can lead to new or growing relationships