In his book, Letters to the Church, Francis Chan describes an exercise his puts to church leaders. “First, I have them list all the things that people expect from their church. They usually list obvious things like a really good service, strong age-specific ministries, a certain...
A month or so ago, I came across an article entitled, “Prayer Is a Waste of Time.” I don’t recall where I read it, but the title—and more so, the premise—really struck me. The author wasn’t saying that time spent in prayer was wasted because there’s no...
Back in September’s Newsletter, I solicited congregational feedback about what I termed, “one of the most important yet least significant aspects of going to church”—worship times. The response was pretty good, almost 80 interviews and emails & follow-ups to help...
For as long as I remember, I’ve loved roller coasters. In fact, I love pretty much all those kind of rides—even The Scrambler, which I rode once while on a date, feeling helpless as my body slammed into the poor girl every five seconds. One of the best moments in life is that last...
“I feel so blessed.” Those were the words of a young mother who’d ridden out a tornado in her bathtub, clinging to her tiny baby. Her house was gone, as were most of her belongings, but she felt blessed. As I sat and watched her story on the evening news, I did not feel blessed...
I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the Lord!” [Psalm 122:1] You can sense the psalmist’s joy. It was time to worship. Alas, there is no biblical indication of what service he was talking about. Do you think he was an 8:30 person? Or would you go...
by Pastor Ted Moeller It’s one of life’s last rites of passage: the compilation of a “Bucket List,” those things a person would like to do before dying. I must confess to being rather duplicitous in the formation of my own such list. It’s not so much a list as it...