This past weekend I (Rebecca) traveled to Dallas, Texas to visit a friend and was able to attend church with her Sunday morning. As we took a tour of the church I was struck by the universal soundtrack of Sunday mornings: teachers setting up crafts, printers pressing last minute papers, worship tuning and practicing, coffee brewing and indistinguishable conversations - moments of fellowship. Then as we began the service, we recited the Apostles Creed together. I was once again struck

On Sunday, we kicked off our series called “Between The Trees: the story of scripture and the 5 trees that tell it”. It’s a series that sums up the entire story of the bible, through the lens of these 5 important trees. The first message in the series was about the Tree of Life: a tree that is found in the Garden of Eden, and that gives renewed life to any and all who eat from it. In the sermon, we focused on God’s original

I had a lot of fun over the last few weeks, talking about the bible, what it is, how to approach it, and so on (and I am equally excited to launch our new series - see below). I loved our AMA (ask me anything) time (I hope you did too), and I hope to do more sessions like that in the future. I appreciated all of your questions, and love the fact that you’re reading scripture, pondering, puzzling, and seeking.  Scripture can be puzzling, but

I hope you’re staying warm on this cold, cold day. Today in the bible reading plan, we read Luke 15 – the chapter that contains the famous parables of the lost sheep, coin, and son(s)/father.  An amazing day of reading.  Did you notice how the chapter starts: how Jesus tells these parables in response to the fact that the religious folk were grumbling that he’s chilling with and welcoming the bad folk?  Sit with that for a minute.  Then reflect on how there’s “lost” outside (the

This week, in the women’s and men’s bible studies, we took a look at Psalm 1. It’s the opening Psalm in the book, setting the tone for it, but it also sets the tone and expectations as to why we read scripture at all. I talked about Psalm 1 on a Sunday morning a few months ago, but have another look at it:  1 Blessed is the one    who does not walk in step with the wickedor stand in the way that sinners take    or sit in the company of

As you hopefully know by now, we have launched our Central Reads bible reading plan for 2024 where together as a church we will spend time reading Scripture, asking questions about it, and growing together. I (Rebecca) am excited for it. But I am even more excited about this:  It has also reignited our family ‘download’ time. When our kids were little, Danny and I would read them a Bible Story before bed - but as they got older and schedules got busier, we

Hello, and merry Christmas again! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was very nice, as it was a good time with family and friends. The Christmas Eve services at Central were a highlight for me as well, as we got to celebrate the birth of our Lord together, meet some new folks, and be reminded of the ‘bell’ that rung on that very first Christmas day to alert us that the Messiah has come.  Or as we sung…  Joy

This Sunday is the big one – not only is it the fourth Sunday of Advent (the theme of which is love) – but it’s also Christmas Eve!!! We’ll be doing two services this Sunday – one at 9:30AM, and one at 5PM. Each will be completely different services, different messages, and so on. We’ll have full childcare and classes at the 9:30AM service, but at the 5PM service, we will just be offering childcare up to 5 years old.  We’d

This Sunday will be the third Sunday of Advent – the theme of which is joy. As this week is the “joy” week, I want to invite you to check out the Bible Project’s Advent video on ‘joy’. It’s a good one – and fills in so much that is usually missing from our understanding of joy.We think of joy as a feeling, like happiness…and that is a part of it, but joy is so much more. Happiness is more