More Than We See
A guest blog / short devotion from former (recently moved) member, Shawn Blythe: I recently attended a classical guitar concert featuring an award-winning classical guitarist with international experience and accolades (Leonela Alejandro). She played a piece written by a world-renowned composer, who composed several hundred musical works, nearly one hundred move musical scores and wrote twenty books (Toru Takemitsu). The musical piece Alejandro selected was composition well known within the classical guitar world and is celebrated for its ability to utilize
You Stepped In
Two Sundays ago – which I echoed in last week’s Wednesday email – I challenged you to step in to the mission of the church, and gave one timely example: the Block Party. You stepped in. Well done. Thank you. Sunday’s Block Party, as hot as it was, was a huge success – and I think, another building block for the Kingdom of God in the Bayshore region. We welcomed loads of kids from Atlantic Highlands (judging by the mound of bicycles on
Join in on God’s Mission
On Sunday, I spoke about how one of the very first things that Jesus DID was to launch the Christian movement - called the Church. He, alone, showed us who God is and what we as humans are meant to be, he inaugurated the Kingdom of God, and in doing so, abolished Satan’s reign over us. Even though he uniquely did these things, he empowered his movement – the Church – to participate in this work, giving us a substantive role with
Characters at the Cross
A guest blog by Rebecca DeLucia, Next Generation Pastor In today’s Bible Reading plan, we are in Luke 23—a chapter jam-packed with action, a slew of characters, plenty of plot, and so much more. In this chapter, we come across the stories of three unexpected individuals. None of them are the “main characters,” yet each shows us something about what it means to follow Jesus. The first character we meet is Simon of Cyrene. Simon doesn’t wake up that morning planning to serve Jesus;
To Such as These
Sunday’s message was all about how one of the most fundamental things that Jesus DID, was to inaugurate the Kingdom of God: the reality that God is truly in charge in a way that touches real life for real people in real ways with real meaning in the real world we really live in. In today’s bible reading in our Burning Hearts reading plan, Jesus (as he often does) addresses the Kingdom of God again, this time in reference to little children (“even infants”). Here’s what
No One to Help?
In this week’s bible studies, we’ve been looking at the story of Jesus healing the ‘invalid’ in John 5. (The phrase ‘invalid’ has always haunted me - that someone could be labelled as “in-valid”. But how often does our world “invalidate” someone, write them off, marginalize them because of a disability, a personality flaw, a public fall from grace, or just because of how they were born? More often than we’d like to imagine.)Anyway, Jesus asks him, “do you want to
Disappointment.
A few weeks ago, in our Jesus SAID (stories) series, I spoke about the parable of the persistent widow (Luke 18:1-8) - that in the face of her enormous disappointment and discouragement, Jesus encouraged us to "pray always and not to lose heart". It's an important message, as we all will and do face disappointment in life. Last week, former Central member Shawn Blythe (who moved to Delaware) sent me a short blog on disappointment that I thought is really worth sharing with
Hearts and Lives on Fire
In today’s reading in our Burning Hearts bible reading plan, we meet a John the Baptist who is, well, fiery. He’s paving the way for Jesus the Messiah to come, saying that when he comes, things will be transformed. That’s what fire does: transforms. It warms, it illuminates, and it destroys as it paves the way for what is new. John is fiery, but be even more on the look out for Jesus because, as he says, Jesus will baptize people in fire
The Shepherd of Easter
A post by Rebecca DeLucia, Next Generation Pastor Since January Central Kids has been memorizing Psalm 23 and on Sunday we got to see the fruit of that labor. What struck me this week as I watched the video over again (it is just so sweet!) was the deep connection Psalm 23 has to Easter. Psalm 23 is often used for quiet, heavy moments; hospital rooms, funerals, seasons of grief. But it was never meant to live only there because it speaks just
Saved by Snakes?
In today’s bible reading (Numbers 21), we come across one of the strangest stories in all of scripture, but one that – because of Jesus – holds enormous importance. It’s the story of the venomous snakes in the wilderness. In the words of Indiana Jones, "Why'd it have to be snakes?" To make a long story short, God liberated Israel from its slavery in Egypt, Israel distrusted God and detested his provisions for them, and so they were made to wander for a long,