Coming to the Still Waters

This Sunday I had a special moment with a 2nd grader in the morning worship service and another special moment with an elderly couple in an evening session.  These bookend events of my day and also representing the bookends of the life span let me see again how important the local church is to the soul.  Let me start with the young one. Gabby, the 2nd grader, is a good representative of all the children of the church.  She comes faithfully with her parents and participates in the children's programs the church provides.  She is so comfortable with being in church that I think she probably knows of places to hide that I don't know about.  She has some great friends at the church, both young and old.  She dons a smile when you say her name. This Sunday, during the morning worship service, we sang a song that I put some simple motions to.  The young ones jump right in and start mimicking my movements while a majority of the older ones just loo...

This morning's broadcast is a telling of the Easter Sunday stories that I wrote about in a previous post:   https://pastorwolfgang.blogspot.com/2019/04/monday-reflectionseasterresurrection.html    I thought I would put it in radio form. One of the short stories is about Eric and Cristina.  They are heading back out in full time pastoral ministry after a needed break and I am so glad this church was able to be their refueling station.  They never stopped ministering.  They have a great discipleship outreach to those around them and includes their whole family in the process. They are heading to Grace Church of Bowling Green, Ohio with a church planting group called Assist.  Here is a link to their Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/assistcx/ Our prayers are with this ministry family as they go forth into the world with the gospel! Adam

I am thankful for Thom Rainer and the Lifeway resources.  Mr. Rainer gives us a blog everyday to think deeper about what we see and experience as pastors.  The focus on his " Rainer on Leadership"  reports for Tuesday and today were on the topic of nominal attenders.  The church is experiencing more attenders who were regular attenders becoming nominal attenders.  Being a nominal attender too long could lead to becoming a part of the Christmas and Easter crowd.  Is there anything we can do about this migration?  Mr. Rainer makes us think about these things. The first definition given for the word nominal is, "existing in name only."   When this relates to the Christian or the church it is never good.   "Yup, that's my church."   "When was the last time you attended there for a Sunday service?" "Let me think,...ah, I think it was...." The number being thrown around is 15 to 24 times a year.  A nominal a...