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Welcome Spring
By Emily Cook “It’s like this, children,” said pastor-daddy, trying to explain the mysteries of faith one bleary morning, “Imagine little Peter walked across the street to the pond, and he fell through the ice and he died.” “No daddy I didn’t do that!” “Peter, it’s just a story, like a parable, I know it didn’t really happen.” “But I DIDN’T! Don’t laugh at me, Marcus!” “Okay, Peter. We know. Just listen.” “So, imagine he died. Could he call for help then? If he were dead, could he wave his arms and holler for us to come save him?” Heads shake. No way. That’s ridiculous. “Of course not. This is…
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Getting Kids to Church is Simple
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Article XVIII: Of Free Will
67] The Eighteenth Article, Of Free Will, the adversaries receive, although they add some testimonies not at all adapted to this case. They add also a declamation that neither, with the Pelagians, is too much to be granted to the free will, nor, with the Manicheans, is all freedom to be denied it. 68] Very well; but what difference is there between the Pelagians and our adversaries, since both hold that without the Holy Ghost men can love God and perform God’s commandments with respect to the substance of the acts, and can merit grace and justification by works which reason performs by itself, without the Holy Ghost? 69] How…
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Article XVII: Of Christ’s Return to Judgment
“66 The Seventeenth Article the adversaries receive without exception, in which we confess that at the consummation of the world Christ shall appear, and shall raise up all the dead, and shall give to the godly eternal life and, eternal joys, but shall condemn the ungodly to be punished with the devil without end.” Source.
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Faith and Freedom in the Gospel
by Vanessa Rasanen I’m sitting in the late afternoon sun, my baby in her exersaucer on our back patio while the big kids help their dad with some yard work. It’s a struggle to see my typed words through the glare off my laptop, but I push on, because this is a rare moment when I have to just sit and write while enjoying the sound of our kids laughing and loving this spring weather. Never mind that just on the other side of the sliding door is a sink full of dishes from two meals and a laundry basket overflowing with clean clothes needing to be folded. There are…
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Loss, Grief, and Miscarriage
–This post was submitted anonymously. I had a miscarriage, and it’s a secret. My child, which was being knit together by God in a secret place died, and became a secret also. He was alive inside me long enough for me to begin dreaming about what his life would be like, but not long enough to seem real now as I look back to this shadowy time in my life. This child, who in my imagination was my son, was a gift given to me years after I had given up the possibility of carrying a child. My pregnancy test turned positive only hours before I heard my pastor preach…
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Good Friday Anniversary
By Sandra Ostapowich Happy Anniversary! Who has a wedding during Holy Week?? On Good Friday?? That’s just insane, right? This day is all about Jesus, it’s sacrilegious to do anything but contemplate Christ’s death for us that day. Well, it’s an arranged marriage for one thing. The groom’s Father set it all up a while back. Way back even before there was a when (Eph. 1:4-10). See, the LORD wasn’t surprised when Adam and Woman fell into sin. Jesus becoming Man and dying on the cross for our sins wasn’t a Plan B to mop up the mess we’d made of everything. No, it was the plan all along. Twisted?…
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Blessed Easter!
He is risen! He is risen indeed, Alleluia! Have a blessed Easter. Go to church. Celebrate the love our dear Lord has for us and the wonderful news that our Lord conquered the grave. He is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia. Photo Credit to Jim Forest. Creative Commons License.
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Easter Vigil
By Amanda Markel You may have noticed that some churches have a service on Holy Saturday evening. For some people, this may or may not come as a surprise. It is not uncommon for churches to have a Saturday evening service weekly, which usually serves as an opportunity for members who cannot make it to the regular Sunday morning service to still receive Christ’s gifts, and be in fellowship with the congregation. But whether or not your church regularly worships on Saturday evening, the Holy Saturday service, the Great Vigil of Easter, is different. First, what it’s not. It’s not supposed to be a regular Saturday worship service. It shouldn’t…
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For Good Friday
By Sandra Ostapowich “I couldn’t believe how gory it was.” That’s what my boss told me after going to see The Passion of the Christ when it first came out in the theater. “I knew the story of Jesus and what was going to happen, but I had never imagined it could be that violent.” And this from a snarky atheist. I used to be able to watch violent movies, shoot-em-ups and creepy murder mysteries without batting an eye. I’d go through Holy Week and piously imagine the betrayal, trumped-up charges, beatings, flogging, public humiliation and crucifixion and how horrible it must’ve been. But, in my mind, it was sanitized.…
