Josh Vires

Frank Wampol did an outstanding job on Sunday morning directing our hearts toward a better understanding of the emotional and physical agony that Jesus experienced during his crucifixion and the time leading up to it. Before Sunday, I knew that Frank was going to...

Kimberly and I adopted our first dog together in 2013. She was a husky/German shepherd mix named Chloe. She was a big dog with a very loud bark. When I served in youth ministry, I often traveled out of town overnight. Kimberly traveled with me on occasion, but when...

Saturday’s parenting conference was outstanding. Lonnie Jones, as a keynote speaker, shared an abundance of valuable information. If you were not able to attend this year, I hope that you will consider attending future events and/or encourage others you know to. As...

In a book I read some time ago, the author was reflecting on a time when they had recently been elected to an office. They noted all the various promises and commitments they had made during their campaign, and then said that after being elected they needed to move...

A couple of weeks ago, I shared two opportunities that we had to connect with people in our surrounding communities. We had booths representing the church at “Hay Hoover” and Pelham’s “Fall Fun Day.” By taking advantage of these opportunities, we were able to connect...

I have this hat that my dad brought back to me from a business trip to Atlanta when I was 9 or 10 years old. You can see that I’ve worn it a lot. In fact, I wore it to just about everywhere I went during the summer when I was a kid. Church camps, grandparents’ house,...

Several years ago, there was story shared about a woman from Connecticut whose power had gone out during a storm. She left her house to go to a local hardware store to purchase some flashlights, but the store was closed. She returned home and found what she thought...

I attended the New Day Conference in Murfreesboro, Tennessee at the end of last week with a small group from Riverchase. It was a good conference and I left encouraged about the opportunities we have to fulfill the call of Christ to make disciples. On Friday evening,...

You Are What You Eat You’ve heard the phrase, “You are what you eat.” Simply defined, it means that you should eat healthy if you want to be healthy. This phrase can trace its roots back to the early 1800’s. It came from the 1826 work The Physiology of Taste, in which...

Above the piano in our house is a large wood sign with the phrase, “it is well with my soul” on it. Kimberly and I purchased it during a season of our life together where we were not completely sure what the future had in store for our little family. Since then, the...

I would like to share with you an excerpt from a poem written by Ann Weems. The beginning of it describes a four-year-old child that brought with her a balloon to church one Sunday. When her Sunday school teacher saw the balloon, she mockingly said to the girl, “We...

When my grandmother, who we called Granny, passed away several years ago, my mom and her siblings asked me to speak at her funeral. My mom had shared Granny’s Bible with me, so I began looking through it for any thoughts she had written down or notes that might shine...

I’m not much of an optimist. I’m not really a pessimist either. I consider myself more of a realist. Rather than seeing my cup as half empty or half full, I just see an 8 ounce cup that has about 4 ounces left in it. I think one of the mistakes we can make is...

A study commissioned in 2017 by the Innovation Center of U.S. Dairy a few years back suggested that seven percent of American adults believe that chocolate milk comes from chocolate/brown cows. If you do the math, that works out to 16.4 million misinformed,...

We were discussing King Uzziah last week in the Homebuilders’ class. 2 Chronicles 26 tells us King Uzziah was appointed king when he was only 16 years old and that he “sought the Lord” (vs. 5) for a period following his appointment. However, he eventually became...

One of my goals in the first few months of being here is to connect with those who are involved with organizing or leading our various projects, events, and ministries. I have been able to visit with several of you already. It has been a blessing to learn more about...

This is a question I have been asked more than once since we’ve arrived here. I am going to have an opportunity to present to the congregation the vision I have for this work later, but for now, I do want to share a brief description. At its core, involvement ministry...