The Village!
A guest blog by Rebecca DeLucia, our Next Generational Pastor This past Sunday we launched our newest effort to build intentional intergenerational relationships here at Central, The Village. If you missed the launch, you can watch it right here. This initiative will pair kids within the church with adults, so that we can ensure that every kid will be seen, heard, known, encouraged and prayed for. I’ve had many encouraging conversations with people here at Central - both before and after Sunday - who
An Ambitious Start!
I’ll say it again: happy new year! I hope that your start to the new year has been a good one. This new year at Central, we are being pretty ambitious: kicking off three big things. Let me briefly tell you about each. The first, we’ve already kicked off and I hope you’re joining us in: the Light to My Path 2025 bible reading plan. If you haven’t, now is the time to hop on. We’re not too far into the Gospel of Luke, so
Time
A guest blog from Shawn Blythe, looking at a reading from last week! As we enter a new year, it is not uncommon to think about time. We think about the things we did during the last twelve-month period, and the things we will do differently in the next twelve months. However, I must admit that my thinking about time goes well beyond what some might consider healthy. I am obsessed with time. What time is it? When does it start?
The Tragedy of Christmas Trees
Two Sundays ago, I spoke about my family's Christmas tree – how it fell, shattered a bunch of prized ornaments, and dispersed irremovable blue glitter forever into my world…some of you have asked me how it’d doing – and I’m happy to report it is still standing, crooked, leaning backwards, a bit pathetic, but it’s there lighting up our living room! But it is dying. Christmas trees, from the moment they’re cut down, are either dead or dying (however you want to
Mary’s Steps of Faith
Throughout December in the women’s bible study, we’ve been taking a careful look at the story of Mary in Luke 1, and have had some fantastic discussions. It’s a perfect Advent bible study to focus on with the women – especially in a year where we are focusing on discipleship, taking steps of faith, and learning to follow Jesus. Mary’s faith – among many other things – is a model for each of us to grow from. Before I go on, take a
The Bible is So Cool!
A blog by Rebecca DeLucia, Next Generation Pastor "The bible is so cool!" I wish I could have captured the look on the child's face as they said this on a Sunday morning. We had just finished our November series called “Unsung Heroes” which covered the book of Ruth. If you aren’t familiar with the Central Kids curriculum we use, called GROW, it has a big idea each week. For the November series the four big ideas were: God gives us companions, God gives
Irresponsible Responsibility?
This morning on the way in for our men’s bible study, I was listening to a song called “Irresponsible” by JUDAH. and J. Monty (the song is a bit outside of my normal listening patterns, but I kind of like it…no worries if you do not!). Anyway, the chorus kind of hit me this morning – especially as tomorrow is Thanksgiving (a day where we give thanks, and are reminded to live as grateful people):And I just wanna say that
We Must Learn To Pray. We Have To.
This past Sunday, along with this week of Step Groups (from Discipleship Essentials), is all about prayer. If you missed the sermon, you can check it out right here, but the main point was this (in the words of Tim Keller): We must learn to pray.We have to. At the end of the sermon, I suggested that if you struggle with ‘rudderless’ prayer - or just want some structure or help for your prayer, you could try following a guide or something along those
Visions…
A guest blog by Shawn Blythe. Our Bible reading for this week takes us to the book of Revelation. It is a book centered around the vision John experienced while exiled on the island of Patmos. Although I have personally never experienced a vision that I would attribute to God (most of my visions are likely attributable to eating entirely too much before bedtime), the use of visions in the Bible to communicate important information from God is well documented. Old
Survival of the Fittest
I usually find our Wednesday morning men’s bible study conversations fascinating. Today was no different. So much so that it inspired what I wanted to share with you today.With the men’s bible study, we’ve been slowly working our way through Paul’s most ambitious letter – Romans. Today, we spent a lot of time on two deep, challenging, and rich verses from Romans 12: 1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living