Men Pray Together…

The Thursday Men’s Prayer Group went well tonight.

This is church.

It was good to hear how God was working in our different lives.

This is church.

We talked about things like changes in business and working, being productive, overcoming loneliness, stress, family members, growing close to God, being close to family, managing schedules, serving God, being healthy emotionally and spiritually and physically.

This is church.

We discussed helpful ideas.

This is church.

We shared good advice.

This is church.

And we prayed.

This is church.

If any guys are interested in joining us, contact Pastor Steve or Josh.

New Sermon Series

April, 2020

After an extensive tour of the United States, German pastor and theologian Helmut Thielicke was asked what he saw is the greatest defect among American Christians. He replied, “They have an inadequate view of suffering.” (Philip Yancey in Where Is God when it Hurts?)

This is a sobering suggestion.

And if it’s true, we probably ought to address it.

This Sunday marks the beginning of a new sermon series viewing pain as a “substitute teacher”.

Are there lessons we can learn through suffering that would be of benefit to us – things we could not discover apart from pain?

This series came to my mind several weeks ago as I was reading Samuel Chan’s book, Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth. It appears it might be a timely topic. In the the next several weeks, I hope to flesh out five specific lessons from Chand’s chapter, You Gotta Love It.

Pray that the Holy Spirit will use this series to communicate biblical concepts that will help us view our lives and the events that fill them from the perspective God would desire.

Why, God?

I have some good friends who feel it’s wrong to ask God “Why?” When I asked them why I can’t ask God why, they say that it’s disrespectful and that it’s none of our business why God does what he does.

Yeah…. and no. You can ask God why with a heart of disrespect. I’ve done it. Countless times.

But you can ask God why with a heart that wants to see what He sees – a heart that wants to know as we are known.

That’s what this video is about.

If asking God “Why?” draws you closer to him, there’s probably little you could do that would be more constructive.

Don’t Lose Heart…

Christian Audio has a book for you called Don’t Lose Heart. It’s free for the month of April 2020.

WAIT! Don’t dismiss this by saying, “I can’t listen to audio books; my mind wanders.”

That’s probably true. Your mind does that while you’re reading a book or even watching TV. But you can change that.

It’s a learned discipline to focus your attention in any area, and audio is no exception. I encourage you to give it a try.

You can get the book by clicking this link:
https://christianaudio.com/free/ and registering for a free account.

Don’t be afraid to register with ChristianAudio. I’ve received GREAT books from Christian Audio – many free, some that I have purchased.

Passion, you say?

This is Passion Week – or Holy Week – the week we remember Jesus’ Passion.

These days, when I think of passion, I think of how hard my fellow church leaders are working to do their ministry. Today, Laurel was helping me make this video and I said,”And just like that, every pastor’s wife became a video producer.”

Why?

Why are all these pastors doing this?

Why are all the churches streaming?

This video speaks to that question.

What a lot of people don’t realize is that this push – this passion for the gospel – is not new for most of my peers. The circumstances simply make it more evident.

Got passion? Let it show!