It’s Easter Sunday, which is a day of celebration. It’s often a busy day of family get-togethers, Easter baskets, and Easter Egg Hunts. For many, it’s a day to dress a little nicer to go to church, and for some, it’s a tradition to go to church on bigger holidays like Christmas and Easter. So, for many inside their churches, it’s an exciting day with visitors and more attendance and energy around the church services. And all this . . . Read More »
Redeemed & Forgiven Series Kick Off – Understanding Grace
Today we start our big fall series Redeemed and Forgiven. As Ken and I built this series I just kept getting more excited, because we are going to be exploring what it truly means to live out a life in Christ. We want to talk about what it could look like to live a life that is truly redeemed and forgiven and most importantly how we can actually live like we are redeemed and forgiven…do you see why . . . Read More »
Don’t Be That Guy, You Won’t Find Joy
This December we talked about joy. We said joy is different than happiness. Happiness is what happens to us. It’s temporary, it’s external. Joy is a decision we make that says, ‘God is in control and I can relax in that.’ That means I can have an awful day but it can’t steal my joy in the reality that God loves me and has freed me. We walked through the Christmas story and talked about the things that . . . Read More »
Everyone Love’s The Presents Right?
So it’s Christmas time, and frankly outside of The Grinch, and Scrooge most people really love this time of year. For some it’s the decorations, for others it’s the time with family and friends. For some it’s the food, and for others like my wife it’s the Christmas music…but it’s pretty safe to say everyone loves the presents. My kids are always excited about the gifts. My son Trey has been working on his Christmas list since like . . . Read More »
Why Fuss At All? – Jesus
This past summer, we got a dog. I like to refer to her as a nine pound pooper. My family likes to call her Daisy. I was against getting the dog, and of course, the family of women I live with, was all for it. My daughter helped me by creating a chart. The chart showed me that if we buy the dog, over time, my happiness scale would go up. It was a very well done chart, . . . Read More »
What Are You Willing To Do?
So today we are wrapping up our series on joy, and if you think about where all this series has gone you may have an idea of where we are headed today. We started with trying to understand what joy is and what joy is not. We learned where joy is found. It’s found in God. We learned how Sabbath rest helps us connect to the source of joy which is God. We looked at joy in our . . . Read More »
Too Busy Building It To Complain About It
The reason we are talking about Joy is simple. We want you to have it. We want you to have Joy. We defined what we are talking about. It’s not temporary happiness that can be taken from you, no, we are talking about long term joy that can’t be taken from you. The second reason we are talking about this is because it is a defining marker of being a disciple of Christ. Scripture says, …for the joy . . . Read More »
Leading Your Family To Joy
Joshua 24:1 Joshua called together all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He called in the elders, chiefs, judges, and officers. They presented themselves before God. 2 Then Joshua addressed all the people: “This is what GOD, the God of Israel, says: A long time ago your ancestors, Terah and his sons Abraham and Nahor, lived to the east of the River Euphrates. They worshiped other gods. 3 I took your ancestor Abraham from the far side of . . . Read More »
Joy vs Happiness
Today we start a new series and I have to say I’m really excited about it. This new series will run us through the holiday season and is called “The Joy of Christmas.” So we are going to be focusing a ton this holiday season on a very specific thing, and that is joy. Did you know that the term joy comes up over 300 times in the Bible? So I’m thinking that it must be a big . . . Read More »