It’s family, food, fellowship and fun, Tinsel, bright lights, people on the run. Travel to see grandparents, bringing suitcases, Sleeping in strange houses, beds, and weird places. It’s shepherds in bathrobes and children as sheep, Waiting through church without saying a peep. Deciding if the presents will be opened this Eve, Or if Christmas morning […]
I have been thinking about the word community. We all live within different communities, and not just talking about where we physically live. That’s one community, but we have the community of our family, our work community, church community, social media community, and you can think of others. Starting as a Chaplain, the medical community […]
Advent is a time of preparation. It is the four weeks leading up to Christmas and the anticipation of the coming of Jesus into the world. Candles are used to symbolize this journey. The first candle is the Prophecy or Hope candle. Typically a purple candle, it is in remembrance of the prophets, especially Isaiah, […]
Often we hear that Advent is the season of waiting but I think we need to refer to Advent as the season of anticipation and preparation. Do you like waiting in line at the grocery store? Maybe you enjoy waiting at the doctor’s office? How about the security line at an airport? Or to use […]
In his book, The Case for Grace: A Journalist Explores the Evidence of Transformed Lives, Lee Strobel outlines his stories of grace, the stories of other’s lives, and their intersection with God and grace. The opening story about Stephanie simply grabbed me. She was a bi-racial child born during the Korean War. After the war, […]
It’s something we can’t earn. It’s available to everyone of us. Regardless of what we’ve done, it’s simply offered. It’s grace from God. One of the simplest, yet most complex understandings of how God interacts with us, is the concept of grace. Grace is simply the love God has for us that we can’t earn […]
Recently we attended a Phillips, Craig & Dean concert with friends. After singing the song You Are God Alone, one of the performers talked about the lyrics: And right now In the good times and bad You are on Your throne You are God alone He reflected how we all go through good times and […]
We were having a family discussion about the meaning of the Advent candles and came up with differing opinions on the “names” of each of the candles. After a bit of discussion I consulted two experts – Google and my dad. What I found from both was there are differing beliefs on the meanings and […]