The Value of Light
By Rebecca DeLucia, Next Generation Pastor Over spring break last week my 5 year old nephew came to visit. We took him to the Planetarium and the show we saw was about two kids searching for answers about space. Questions ranged from, “How far away is the sun?” to “What is it like to be an astronaut?” The final question they needed to answer was, “What makes Earth so special?” It cutely used the answers to
Carrying the Cross
A guest blog by Shawn Blythe There may be no more poignant reminder of the ways by which we cross paths with our Savior than the story of Simon of Cyrene. His intersection with Christ was unlikely and under the most unimaginable circumstances. Cyrene was approximately 800 miles from Jerusalem – a journey that would take approximately one month to complete by land. It was a pilgrimage that was likely only undertaken a handful of times over the course of a
Maundy Thursday Reflections
A guest blog by Shawn Blythe The events of the Thursday before the crucifixion centered around the Passover meal that has come to be known as ‘The Last Supper’. The events of that evening were among the most momentous events in all of history was going to happen but, apart from Jesus, no one—not even those directly involved—had a clear understanding of the implications. While we typically focus on the attendees of the meal, there are a number of others who
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
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