Easter is (Almost) Here!
Well, it’s here: Easter week! We had a great Glow in the Dark Egg Hunt on Sunday. To all who helped run things, welcome and direct people, run games and crafts, set up and clean up – THANK YOU. We welcomed in over 100 kids and their families to our building, and got to connect with a lot of them. It was a great afternoon. Thank you for using your time, gifts, and energy to serve how you did. Amazing!This
The World Has Gone After Him!
This Sunday, as you may know, is Palm Sunday. It’s the Sunday that Christians all over the world celebrate Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem - where the crowds went to meet him, and lay branches from palm trees at his entry – to welcome him as a king would be welcomed to town. It is quite the scene. But because of our current sermon series, I won’t talk about Palm Sunday this week. So, I’ll take this time to share some thoughts
Those We Bring Along
A guest post by Shawn Blythe. The first chapter of Mark introduces us to the first apostles that Jesus called. They were two sets of brothers who were fishermen. We all know them as James, John, Simon and Andrew and some may recall the story of their calling from our childhood Sunday School classes. Over fifty years later, I can still picture one of the color drawings in my children’s Bible depicting the scene. But what is perhaps easily overlooked are the
That is in the Bible?
Some of what is in the bible is pretty surprising. There are stories that are hard to wrap our minds around, history that is tough swallow, characters that are all too real) that we can all recognize ourselves in them), and rules that seem completely alien from our modern life. And then there’s the Psalms. In our bible reading plan, we entered into a few Psalms last week. The book of Psalms captures a wide range of situations, human emotions, and responses
A Very Fun Youth Retreat
On Saturday, Central Youth had our first ever one day Youth Retreat! It was a great (and long!) day filled with games, laughter, and conversation. The leaders and I took 9 kids to the American Dream Mall for indoor Snow Tubing and an epic photo scavenger hunt. The students bonded with one another and the leaders got to see their personalities shine. We didn’t only have fun though, we also spent time together in Small Groups, sharing about our lives
1 Peter Can Be A Little Tough…
a guest blog by Shawn Blythe The first book of Peter is not a particularly easy read. There is a lot of talk about suffering and encouragement for us to submit ourselves to others. Nobody likes to be told to submit and few people like to suffer. To be fair, Peter is not exactly breaking new ground here as the basic theological precepts are also covered by others – most notably by Paul in his letters to the Ephesians and Colossians. But
The Mission Continues
If you’re following along with our bible reading plan (and I encourage you to!), tomorrow, we wrap up the book of Acts. As we started Acts, I mentioned that Acts 1:8 (“…you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”) functions as a sort of table of contents for the book (as it starts in Jerusalem, goes to Judea and then Samaria, and ends in Rome as ‘the ends of the earth’) – but
Missing Out with Bernice
A guest blog by Shawn Blythe The opportunity to make a difference in any one person’s life can often be a singular event. We cross paths with somebody only once and then both parties continue along their respective paths. In some cases, the encounter may be memorable or even life-changing while in other cases the intersection is inconsequential and quickly forgotten. Bernice crossed paths with Paul only once in Caesarea on or around the year 60 AD. She had already experienced a
Scripture is Script
At the end of the last sermon series (the Off the Shelf series), I introduced the idea that the story of scripture is the one true story of the world – that each of our own stories (and every other story) finds its meaning in. As that story, it is something like a six act play, where the majority of the 5th act is missing – and it is our role to “improvise” the rest of the 5th act, playing our part faithfully. I first heard
Jason’s Houseguests
a guest blog by Shawn Blythe We have all experienced the joys and travails of having a houseguest. Sometimes their departure comes with tears of sorrow that your time together is coming to an end, while other times they are tears of joy for the very same reason. There are plenty of occasions where Benjamin Franklin’s statement that “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days” seems unfortunately appropriate. Although pre-dating this statement by a significant number of years, Paul would