Tis The Season

Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day has always been a special time for me. I’m sure it is for most of us. We love the traditions, the time with family, the joy and the beauty of the season. This is the time when we focus on so many of the blessing we have received. We love […]

Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day has always been a special time for me. I’m sure it is for most of us.

We love the traditions, the time with family, the joy and the beauty of the season.

This is the time when we focus on so many of the blessing we have received. We love being surrounded by those whom we refer to as our blessings.

I think there is something we need to think about.

I love when we think about and talk about all the ways we feel we have been blessed by God. It is important that we think about those things, remember them and remain grateful for them.

However, sometimes we can have such a strong sense of how much God has blessed us with good things and the way He has cared for us and our loved ones, that we can look at those blessings as our assurance that we are approved by God and accepted by Him.

Perhaps it is knowing this about us that causes Jesus to conclude His sermon from the mountain in the way He does.

He tells about the people in the judgment who will be shocked that they are rejected by Jesus, even though they knew Him, thought they were doing good things in His name and even called on His name. No doubt these people, like us, could talk long and with passion of lives blessed by Jesus.

But they were not listening to nor following what He said. We are all building a life. What are we building it on?

Community Connections

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...

Permission to Wonder

In the 6th grade classroom there is a large metal envelope hanging on a bulletin board, and the students know that during bible class, anytime they have a Bible / religious question pop in their mind (whether related to the topic of class, or not), they can go and...

Kidmin 101

This past Sunday night, I shared five core values that our Children’s Ministry is founded on. These values are what helps keep each event, activity, and class in line with our overall mission. The core values are: 1. Know: Our children will learn to know God and the...

Faith On a Shelf

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,...

“Jesus Loves Me”

After being led in this song by two of our young men Sunday night, I was reminded of a quotation from Karl Barth. On April 23, 1962, Karl Barth (the renown 20th Century Swiss-German, neo-orthodox theologian) spoke at Rockefeller Chapel on the campus of the University...

That’s Not a Candle

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...

The Post-Christian Problem

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,...

Josiah’s Reform

In the thirty-one years of his rule, King Josiah proved to be a faithful man of God and a great king of Judah. He served God from the beginning as a young king and grew into a greater understanding of God’s will and a determination to follow that will. He made a...

You Are What You Eat

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...

It Is Well

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...