focus on faith

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – Too many mangers, not enough beds

Do you remember the days leading up to the birth of your first child? There are always challenges and anxieties when children are born, but especially when it’s your first. I’m reminded of this while reading the Gospel of Luke. He paints a challenging picture of the days leading up to the Savior’s birth, including traveling 90 miles with a very pregnant woman on the back of a donkey. Looking back now, we can see the glory that was present in those moments. But I believe that living through it in person was a different story. 

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – Our Greatest Gift

Charles Swindoll, Christian pastor, author and educator, once said “I cannot even imagine where I would be today were it not for that handful of friends who have given me a heart full of joy. Let’s face it, friends make life a lot more fun.” 

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – No room in the guest room

It’s hard to criticize the beauty of the King James Version (KJV) of the Christmas story in Luke 2. Much like the Lord’s Prayer with all its outdated language (art, Thy, trespass, Thine), there’s no updating the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. Mary is Joseph’s “espoused wife, being great with child.” The shepherds were “sore afraid” when the glory of the Lord appeared. And all of it “came to pass” in those days. 

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – Be thankful for God’s many gifts

Taking the time to find God in our everyday lives isn’t as easy as it would seem.  Because our lives our so busy, God often takes a back seat to everything else that is happening.  After all, there is always someone or something demanding our time.  Most of us seem to be in a constant state of alert there just don’t seem to be enough hours in the week to get everything done.  It is so easy to get TOO BUSY to notice God, TOO BUSY to see God’s presence all around us.

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – God works to draw people to Himself

Lately we have experienced some pretty amazing growth at our church. We have been praying for younger people and couples to come for a couple of years. And God has been steadily bringing them to us!     This week we baptized four people at our church! We are thankful for each one of them. Thankful that God broke into their lives and revealed his love for them and that they,

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – That’s impossible!

Here I go again with another pop culture moment. Let me tell you about another one of my favorite movies, “The Empire Strikes Back.” This is second of the three original Star Wars movies. There is one scene in particular in this film that has stuck with me over the years. 

    A boy, Luke Skywalker, is trying to use the ‘force’ to lift his spaceship out of a thick and murky swamp, where it stuck after he crashed it there.

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – Because he lives

The title of this article is also the title of one of my all-time favorite hymns. “Because He Lives” was written by Bill Gaither in 1971. According to Bill Gaither, the song was written after a period of time when he had had a kind of dry spell and hadn’t written any songs for a while. 

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – In the Breaking of the Bread

   In the ancient Church, Christian worship was centered on two things: the Word and the Lord’s Supper. They very simply modeled what happens on Sunday according to the pattern demonstrated in Acts 2:42, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” (ESV) Out of this vague order of worship arose two major parts of the service: The Service of the Word and the Service of the Sacrament. 

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – Dr. Seuss and Sam-I-Am

One of my favorite children authors was Dr. Seuss or Ted Geisel. When you look back at his books it is easy to see that although Dr. Seuss never thought of himself as an exemplary Christian, his storytelling did have a Christian orientation.

Focus on Faith

Focus on Faith – A Transfer of Power

In recent days the Church has had its problems. According to a recent Gallup Poll, church membership in the U.S. has declined steadily over the last two decades. Since 1998 church membership has declined across denominational lines by 20%.

The Washington Times published a piece in July that says, “Just 59% of 18 to 34-year-olds in the U.S. say they believe in God, a prime factor in the decline of overall belief in God from 90% in 2001 to 74% in May of 2023.”