From the Pastor's Desk / Sunday Sermons

The Importance of Remembering

While summer officially began two weeks ago, in most American’s minds it began on May 27th with the celebration of Memorial Day. While that day seems to be all about picnics, camping, and time together with friends and family, the original purpose was to remember those who have died, specifically, those who died in the wars our country fought. So it is with all holidays – they are for remembering. We recently observed Juneteenth and we are going to be celebrating Independance Day. These days are meant to commemorate significant events in our nation’s history, not just give us a …

From the Pastor's Desk / Sunday Sermons

Special Guests

Today we are privileged to have Asa and Suzanna Bartos and family with us. God has called Asa and Suz to encourage the Latin American church to full maturity and equip them with training and resources that are inaccessible or lacking. They long to see Latin Americans multiply leaders, churches, and missions movements among every people. Asa is passionate about teaching and counseling others and hopes to assist in planting churches, encouraging pastors, and counseling families, especially husbands and fathers. He is pursuing further ministry education in the realm of biblical counseling. Both he and Suz love music and expect …

From the Pastor's Desk / Sunday Sermons

Aiming at the Right Target

Being a dad is hard!  Not only is the day to day challenging, but there is always that underlying question, “Am I doing it right?  We worry if we are missing something, if there is a secret rule somewhere we are forgetting to follow. We also fall into the comparison trap, looking at other families and compare our parenting with theirs, our kids with their kids, and our successes and failures with their successes or failures.  That can be discouraging, making us feel like we are a failure and wanting to quiet. I hope in this message that everyone will …

From the Pastor's Desk / Sunday Sermons

Be of One Mind

The Gospel calls us to a different way of life as followers of Jesus.  Pride and division are to have no place, yet they often sneak in the back door, disguised as good things.  We always have to be on guard. Pride comes in many forms: maybe in the form of goals, maybe in the form of styles, maybe in the form of a hyper-focus on specific details.  It always brings terrible outcomes, such as strife, personal attacks, church splits, and angry outbursts.  God has given us a very clear path to avoiding this – being of one mind in …

From the Pastor's Desk / Fun Stuff / Sunday Sermons

Follow This Pattern

If we are honest, we have to admit that we are often following examples.  Whether consciously or unconsciously, we are imitating people frequently.  We begin life by imitation whoever raises us.  At school, we tend to imitate classmates we look up to.  In athletics or the arts, we are following the pattern our coach, music teacher, or dance instructor demands.  On our own we copy our heroes in those fields and in our careers, we follow our mentors. But we have to be careful, are the people we are following and copying leading us to a good place?  Are we …