A Father’s Hand In this week’s bulletin article, "A Father’s Hand," I compared my holding Augie’s hand to how our heavenly Father holds ours. I won’t regurgitate all of it now…but before I wrote that I used my Logos Bible Software 4 to look up every occurrence of the word "hand" in the English Standard…
Author: Alan
Alan is an ordinary guy, living in a small, high plains Colorado town...and humbled to be a minister of God...
A Father’s Hand
More often then not, when I run errands close to home I am joined by a most affable companion. For instance, if I ask Augie if he would like to go to T-Bird I am guaranteed a hearty "Yes please!" At this point whenever he sees me throwing on shoes and the like, he assumes…
Symphony of Christ, 4th Movement: The Culmination
Recap We are now through three of the Symphony of Christ’s four movements… The Promise In the first we saw the creation of the heavens and the earth; our original parents almost immediately blow it by losing trust in God; and our Lord…instead of giving us the destruction we deserved…giving a promise of a Messiah…
“Jesus loves me (but not you), this I know…” (Part 2)
Part one of this discussion quoted a tweet from Steve, a famous Christian artist who is now also a pastor in Florida. In response to my question whether God loves everyone, this brother in Christ responded that God does not saying, "His love, as is His grace, is salvific & not common." The first half…
“Jesus loves me (but not you), this I know…” (Part 1)
I think most English-speaking Christians are familiar with the children’s song “Jesus Loves Me,” which begins with the words, “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” I’ve appreciated the fact that within our little congregation we don’t consider it unworthy of adult attention, and hymn 1014 in Songs of Faith…
Symphony of Christ, 3rd Movement: The Incarnation
We’ve now come to the third movement in the Symphony of Christ, but before the musicians start playing let’s quickly review what we heard in the first two movements… Movement 1, "The Promise" Our first movement, "The Promise," exploded at the beginning—as we were treated to the creation of the heavens and the earth…followed by…
Symphony of Christ, 2nd Movement: The Anticipation
Remembering the Promise The first movement of the Symphony of Christ started off magnificently—with the creation of the heavens and the earth ex nihilo—out of nothing—followed by a huge angelic celebration! Then we heard a melody of innocence in the Garden, but with a foreboding background tune played by a serpent and one third of…
Remembering a Friend of God
November 29, 2010 Today I wondered how the early Christians reacted to the news of Paul’s passing. How about those closest to him—the ones who were his partners in the gospel? Did the Philippians remember Paul’s letter to them—how he desired to "depart and be with Christ" (Philippians 1:23, ESV)—and then celebrate the fact he…
Symphony of Christ, 1st Movement: The Promise
Advent Not being a liturgical denomination (or a denomination for that matter), it would be easy for us to miss that today is the first Sunday of Advent. Although I was baptized into the Methodist church at the age of two (a compromise between my Lutheran mother and Catholic father), I stopped attending when given…
Bekah, Thanksgiving, and Judgment in a Triad
Bekah As many of you know, this past Tuesday, November 16 would have been Bekah’s 17th birthday. The milestone was a reminder of the loss we all felt that evil Saturday morning in early May. And yes…I did call it an "evil morning"–God never intended that death would enter this world–that it would take a…
Jesus Wept
(This article is based on the sermon given at the memorial service for Rebekah Warren–who passed away instantly from injuries due to an automobile accident early in the morning on Saturday, May 8, 2010. Today, November, 16, 2010, would have been her 17th birthday.) Although the sudden, tragic death of a child can lead to…
Finishing the Race
(Written 11/11/2010) As I mentioned in a previous article, I am in the midst of a nine week “Couch Potato to 5K” (C25K) program. Today was week 5 day 3–the first session comprised entirely of jogging (outside the five minute warm-up and cool-down walking periods). Twenty minutes may seem humorously minuscule to an accomplished jogger,…
Doubt in a Triad
Because I write a weekly article and preach almost as often, I do get a good amount of time with Scripture. However, I’ve been trying to open up the Bible more outside of doing research–often in trying to dissect it during study we miss the forest through the trees, overlooking the whole point God was…
Halloween Crèche?
On a street quite familiar to those of us in Antrim who have needed medical or dental attention, there is a large outdoor crèche that helps bring a little Christ into Christmas during the holiday season–as it reminds us the Son of God, “God with us” (Matthew 1:23, ESV), “made himself nothing, taking the form…
A Christian Voter’s Guide
There are a good number of individuals who will find great discomfort in the title of this article. If you are a non-Christian…it may elicit fears of fundamentalists trying to elect their confederates so as to…in a nefarious conspiracy…change America into a Taliban-style Christian theocracy! Even if you are a believer, the title may be…