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Desiring the past, despising the present
Many times I feel like I’m wasting my life
away, sitting through lectures that are structured by a flawed
system of education, playing virtual games, and constantly looking
towards the future, thinking things will get better. A lot of times
we think about our past, when we were younger, and want our lives to
be like that again.
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Fire
There’s
something about fire that mesmerizes us, attracts us, draws us in.
Its raw power and energy has amazing potential to be used for
good—to heat our homes, to give us light, to cook our food, create
spaces where we tell stories and connect with each other—and also to
destroy as it consumes whatever we throw into it. It’s untamed, we
can’t understand it, and it carries the potential to break out into
something so totally beyond us. It’s a thing of awe, a thing of
terror, a thing of beauty and a thing that has often inspired
worship.
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Understanding where our uniqueness is from
We desire old, vintage, nostalgic
things’ they’re things we want. I love the look of old movie
theaters, the smell of old books, the glimmer of classic cars, the
design of old posters and the simplicity of a boy shooting his eye
out in A Christmas Story.
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Tracing our Roots:
Matthew 1: 1-17
What I came to realize though was that pedigree doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter whether the family line was broken or unbroken,
and with most of us it’s usually a mixture of both. The heroes and
villains, clerics and cattle thieves, political servants,
prostitutes and outlaws, slave liberators and slave holders and
indentured servants make up our checkered past. They spring from the
same branch. Yet we're all family, we have to live together, and we
have to get along.
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Carrying the Stones of Remembrance
Some of the things about Celtic Christianity
I’m really drawn to are their ideas about hospitality and
community. A good man or woman was a generous one, and laws of
hospitality and generosity were not just valued, but made up the
fabric of their culture. Men and women were seen more as equals,
valued. If women could fight in battle then they could also be
queens, or later abbesses (Brigid). The Irish loved nature,
and saw beauty in all of creation, whether on the moors, the rocky
coastlines, the crashing sea, the green hills, the deep forests, or
the sparkling lakes and wells. Life was passionate, both in
the bedroom and on the battlefield, and there was a frank honesty
about sexuality and a thirst for knowledge.
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Cleaning House
I
talked with a friend this week about an opportunity she had to help
a guy clean his house. It may not sound that monumental, except his
house hadn’t been cleaned for SEVEN years. Something had happened,
and his life as he had known it ended. Maybe something died, or
shut down, but stuff started to pile up—garbage, dishes, papers,
clothes—until it felt overwhelming. His friends didn’t know how bad
it had gotten, he hadn’t shown them, or maybe they just never
stopped by. My friend was the first in a long time. They spent six
hours cleaning, just so they could clear a path so the appraiser
could walk through the house. It’s not finished, and there’s a
whole lot more to do, but it’s a start.
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Homeless in Lincoln
When
the two of us decided to experience homelessness one weekend for a
cross-cultural assignment, the lifestyle that over 20 million
Americans experience every year, we were not ready for what we
encountered.
We thought it would be easy to find money or
food in exchange for work, and we were worried we wouldn’t even see
any homeless people, much less interview them. Instead, we were met
by people who wouldn’t look us in the eye, much less give us the
opportunity to work for them.
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How Graduates Can Make Wise
Decisions
A
pastor friend called and asked for counsel: “A 13 year old girl in
my church is from a broken home. Her father left her mother and has
been living with another woman. The Dad has joint custody and
visitation rights and the girl went to visit him for two weeks.
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Have Americans
lost their sense of reality to the The Truth?
Do
we really understand what freedom is all about? Many have paid
dearly for maintaining freedom. “Freedom is not Free”...
much blood has been shed in the name of freedom. Has all this
blood been shed in vain? How can God Bless America when abortion
has killed over 46 million babies; that’s more than double the
number of people who were killed in Holocaust.
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Open
Arms Christian Fellowship has relocated
Open Arms Christian Fellowship has
relocated!
Our new address is 311 Broadway.
We want to take this opportunity to invite you & your family to come
and worship with us at our new location. For more information, call Pastor Larry @
309-830-0461.
Do You Really Want To Know The Truth?
I
had spoken at a family conference
and explained and illustrated Bible truths about how a
parent can “turn around” a rebellious teen.
-- A man came up to me and
said, “How did you discover such amazing truths?” I replied,
“The Bible is the mind of man’s Creator revealed to man. In
the Bible God gave to man every key truth man would need to
live human life. Our difficulty is in receiving and
believing ALL of those truths. But each truth we believe
opens up another set of truths. And each one of those opens
up another set, etc. etc.”
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Which Flag Are You Flying?
I read that
an American POW in the Hanoi Hilton took some cloth scraps
and carefully sewed an American flag. Every morning he
would come to attention, salute the flag and give the pledge
of allegiance. One day his captors caught him. They
destroyed his flag, beat him mercilessly, and then threw him
back into his cell. Later one of his fellow POW’s saw him
working with his hands and asked, “What are you doing?” He
replied, “Sewing another flag.”
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Lincoln Churches Come Together in Action
Community
action of some kind is commonplace inside most
churches. But for the first time in Lincoln, 11 churches --
and that number is anticipated to grow to more than 15 --
have banded together to create the campaign "Together for
Lincoln." This unified action will involve all participating
churches being committed to working together to serve the
community, from building wheelchair ramps to visiting the
homebound.
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Living With Regret
By Ronald K. Denlinger
An error in
judgment can result in a lifetime of regret. It isn't
required that there be any intentional harm to another in
order for us to carry sorrowful thoughts about our actions.
Each of us looks back at things we've done, and we wish for
just a moment in which we could have made a different
decision. If only we had thought more carefully about the
potential consequences. If only we had taken a slightly
different course.
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