On the last mission trip that I was on, I was in charge of certain project that had to do with our worship one evening. I asked a few youth and adults to help me with this particular thing. The majority of those I asked to help were more than willing to pitch in and make this part of our worship service special. One youth, however, had a very different response. When I asked him to be involved, his response was, “So, what are you going to do for me...
Have you ever found yourself in a situation that you absolutely did not want to be in? Perhaps it was some kind of a journey in life that you didn’t want to take—a job change, a move, a relational upset—but life seemed to be pushing you in that direction whether you liked it or not. It was the kind of a journey you were forced to take … against your will! How in the world would life ever seem normal again? I believe that’s what the holy couple must’ve felt...
As we hear the Christmas story over and over and over again, we sometimes become numb to what it really says. Why? Because we’ve heard it all before… But, have we? When many of us think of the town of Nazareth, that we talked about extensively last week, we tend to think that Nazareth is the town where Joseph & Mary are from—where Jesus was raised from his youth into adulthood. But, is that right? Last week, we listened to the start of the Christmas story from the Gospel of...