On Wednesday night 40 of us gathered at Bethel and watched the documentary “When God left the Building.” (For those of you who call Bethel home, you can check the video out of the library at church.) The documentary talks about the decline of church attendance across the United States. To help the watcher understand…
Did you know that if Facebook was a nation it would be the largest country in the world? Yep, there are about 1.7 billion people on Facebook. Yes, I know not everyone uses Facebook or social media of any kind but there is a reason people continue to invent and use such technologies. Connection. We…
If you read last week’s article I wanted you to know that I did make it to San Diego and everything was just fine. I also returned with only a 20-minute delay on Monday morning. Nothing but “First World problems.” All is good. While I was in San Diego, I had the privilege to go…
In his book “Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life”, the author Charles Swindoll tells a story about the 19th Century agnostic Thomas Huxley (some of you might know that it was Huxley who promoted Darwinism and Humanism in his attacks on Christianity). Huxley was in Dublin and was rushing to catch a train. He…
“This is the God of the gospel of grace. A God who, out of love for us, sent the only Son He ever had wrapped in our skin. He learned how to walk, stumbled and fell, cried for His milk, sweated blood in the night, was lashed with a whip and showered with spit, was…
I ran across this article today from a website called gravityleadership.com. It was so good, I wanted to share it with you… One of the most difficult aspects of Christianity for me to embrace and practice has been the whole evangelism thing. Evangelism just doesn’t feel natural to a lot of us. It’s like evangelism is…
Water is the essential for life. Without it, we die. Everything that lives on this planet requires water for its survival. Nothing-new there, right? What I find fascinating is that God uses water and water imagery throughout the Bible to remind us of a spiritual truth. Without God (spiritual water) we are spiritually dead. We…
Do you know what makes everyone uncomfortable? Sin. No one wants to talk about that. Let me take that back. We like to talk about the sins of others. We just don’t want to talk about our own. Right? Are you still reading? Good. Those who are easily offended have moved on! Let’s get down…
According to my count “hell” or “hades” is mentioned 21 times in the New Testament. The Apostles’ Creed also states that “Christ descended into hell” or at least it used to say that. The newer translation says, “he descended into the dead.” We Lutheran’s don’t like to talk about hell. It is like the elephant…
Here’s a fun topic… sin! OK maybe not, but it is interesting. At least for a pastor it is an interesting topic. What exactly is sin? I suppose you could conduct a survey and get answers from people to define sin. However, it is not our description of sin that matters. What matters is how…
