Monday, August 24, 2009

For the Women .... Are you a Mary or a Martha?

Every church desperately needs some Marys. We need them to pray for our children, to put passion in our worship, to write songs of praise and sing songs of glory, to kneel and weep and lift their hands and pray. We need them because we tend to forget how much God loves worship. Marys do not forget! To sit at his feet and spend time with Him.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Where my treasure is

When I turned 12 my parents wanted me to participate in a fraternal type organization designed for young women. I guess you could compare it to a sorority because you had to be voted on to get in, the meetings were held in secret, only open to the members, and dues were required. We even had a secret password and handshake! Woo-hoo! As a part of this organization, I would be able to learn some things that I am sure they felt were important for a young woman to learn. I would have the opportunity to participate in service projects, hold positions of leadership, be taught certain disciplines, have good role models, and my personal favorite, wear formal dresses.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Saturday, August 8, 2009

God's love letter

Twice in the last couple of weeks I have had people tell me that when they tried to read the Bible they just opened it randomly and started reading wherever their eyes landed. They both reported that what they read either did not make sense to them or they didn't like what it said. I have heard this type of Bible reading referred to as the "lucky dip" method and there was a great story behind it which illustrated why using this method is not always the best idea. So I began to research online to see if could find the illustration. The following text is quoted from a website from the Middletown Bible Church, Middletown, Connecticut.

Friday, August 7, 2009

Appreciating God's handiwork

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Monday, August 3, 2009

What really matters

Another volunteer team arrived today, almost 11 mos. since Hurricane Ike wreaked it's havoc on the little town of Bridge City, population 8651. One of the sponsors who was also from Texas told me that she had not heard about what had happened in our town. I told her about the fact that there were 3400 homes in Bridge City and only 14 were spared from the flooding. With eyes wide she replied "I had no idea!" She was amazed to hear our story as well as the college students who were volunteering their energy. The team only spent one afternoon at the church, but accomplished a great deal. There were about 35 in the group, so if you multiply that by the number of hours they spent working, that equals ALOT of volunteer hours. Over and over we heard, "Thanks for letting us come!" and "We are glad to help do whatever we can." One of them wanted to get a contact number so he could arrange another team to come back and work again. What a blessing!