Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you had a blessed couple of weeks.
Jill and I really enjoyed our vacation last week. It was fun visiting our daughter and son-in-law in Austin, and it was fun going over to Port Aransas on the Gulf coast to just relax on the beach. We did whatever we wanted and we didn’t have to worry about a schedule. It was very relaxing.
This…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you had a blessed week.
I don’t know whether or not you know this, but Jill and I have a trip planned to the Holy Lands in November. We are scheduled to fly into Tel Aviv and then from there spend eight days touring around Israel visiting the sights where Jesus himself visited. We are supposed to visit Mount Carmel, the place where…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you had a blessed week.
When I graduated from high school, I thought college would be a “piece of cake.” I had gotten straight “A”s in high school, and there was no reason to think college would be any different. Then, after just a few weeks of college classes, I had my first college exam. It was in my history class, and…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you had a blessed week.
Over the past month, our Gospel texts each Sunday have been filled with Jesus talking in parables as he attempted to explain what the kingdom of heaven is like to his disciples. The kingdom of heaven is like a sower who sows his seed, a mustard seed, leaven in bread; all of which have to do with how the kingdom…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you had a blessed week.
I am deeply saddened by the latest conflicts in Israel and Gaza. In the very lands that our Lord and Savior walked and brought the Good News of Peace, conflict, violence, hatred and killing persists. So what caused this latest conflict? Why do both sides keep bombing and killing? Well, that depends on which…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you had a blessed week.
There is an old joke about a man who owned a parrot. Every day at 5 p.m., the man took the parrot and walked down the street to the corner bar where he had a few drinks and talked with his friends. He had taught the parrot to order for him yelling out, “Gimme a beer! Gimme a beer!” every time he came in…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you had a blessed and safe 4th of July.
For most of us, we celebrate on the 4th of July with fireworks, parades, and barbeques. As a national holiday, it marks that date in U.S. history, July 4, 1776, on which the Declaration of Independence was adopted.
So, I got to wondering this week, did they have huge celebration on July…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray that you’ve had a blessed week.
As I was reading through some articles online this week, one, in particular, caught my attention that I just had to read. The headline read, “Should We Love Conditionally or Unconditionally?” It was actually a May 3, 2014 article from the New York Times that was an excerpt from a book entitled…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray that you’ve had a blessed week.
Back in March, several of us from Salem attended a leadership seminar. It was a great learning experience and, as part of the learning process, those of us that attended now get to meet with our leadership coach several times through the year to help us learn and adopt new, more effective styles of leadership.…
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray that you’ve had a blessed week.
This Sunday is Holy Trinity Sunday. It is the one day in the church calendar where we celebrate a man-made doctrine and not a scriptural act or teaching. The word “Trinity” appears nowhere in the scriptures. It is a term and a teaching that the church created after hundreds of years of discussion and…