As I wrote some notes Wednesday night on the passage I’m preaching this Sunday 1, I found myself listening to music written by Rich Mullins. I don’t typically listen to Christian music, and usually can’t stand any music with lyrics while I write, but there’s something about Rich Mullins’ music which captures my heart. Rich…
Category: Pastoring
A Meditation for Christmas
What follows is an edited version of my meditation for Christmas eve worship. As we worship here tonight, we heard the words of Isaiah 1, confirmed by the words of the angels in the Gospel of Luke 2, which show us who our savior is. Jesus is the “prince of peace” Now Biblical “peace” is…
The Value of Worship
Christmas is on a Sunday this year, and I’ve been hearing a good deal of chatter about what a “problem” this creates. There is an assumption people won’t come because “Christmas is family time 1.” This notion of a Sunday Christmas being a problem is actually a sign of a larger problem which spans across…
The Coming Celebration
What follows is an edited version of my sermon on James 5:7-11, with some brief thoughts on the first six verses of this chapter. While I’ll be concentrating on verses 7-11 in this message, for us to do so we’ll first need to give a bit of context. The fifth chapter of James, up to…
The Presence of Community
After a terribly difficult week, Saturday was a bit of a respite. Central Baptist Church was out and about doing various tasks and it was nice to see the breathe of community life in action. Things began in the morning as a group of folks gathered to take care of the fallen leaves and get…
Beautiful Thing
It’s been a cruddy week. Everything I’ve tried to accomplish has been blocked by an error, glitch, or other problem. At last count I’d spent around 12 hours on the phone with various instances of technical support. As such, every productive thing I wanted to accomplish had to wait. I also had something to do…
