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
Come to the Feast
As you may or may not know, this Sunday is the next “ABCNJ North Shore Rally”. 'What is that?', you might be asking….good question. Should I consider attending it? Even better question. Why? The best question. So here’s some answers. What is it?Central is an “American Baptist Church” – that's the “ABC” in the title of the rally. Since we are in New Jersey, we are a member of the ABCNJ (the NJ chapter of the ABC). And, the ABCNJ is
Reminder: People are Great
On Monday, I was reminded of something that we all need to be reminded of at times: People are great. Like, when you really get to know a person – most people – if not all - are great. But so often we don’t get to know them, and so we misjudge and miss it. I was reminded of this on Monday at a funeral that I had the privilege of being a part of. It was for a woman named Courtney who was