Alice volunteered at a camp for terminally ill children and became friends with a young girl, ‘Lori’, who not only was terminally ill, not only severely disabled, but was also wonderfully courageous and optimistic.

I don’t like travelling. My son has a great idea, teleporting. Kind of like what you see in science fiction (Star Trek, etc). Need to be at the office? Just punch in the correct coordinates, and you are there. Want to go visit your family? Go on a vacation? Just touch the screen, and you are there.

Here are some summer time thoughts about buzzards, bats and bees.

The Buzzard: If you put a buzzard in a pen that is 6 feet by 8 feet and is entirely open at the top, the bird, in spite of its ability to fly, will be an absolute prisoner.

How is your heart? Recently we had a blood drive at the church and three of the many things they do is take your blood pressure, check your pulse, and take a sample of your blood and after a few days you can call in and get cholesterol reading. So even though you are there to give blood, you get a mini-heart screening as well.

School will be starting later this month and I was thinking about my own schooling. I am not very good at math. I don’t know what happened. When I started school, I was great at math. I could count. I could add. I could subtract. Then came double-digit addition and subtraction and I still had no problems. Next there was multiplication and division. Bring it on, I said, I’ve got…

If we knew of a co-worker, neighbor, friend, or family member who had no where to go for Thanksgiving, we would invite them to our house. We would not be embarrassed, and I don’t think we would feel put out, in fact, just the opposite, I think we would feel grateful that we had an opportunity to reach out

One of my favorite non-Biblical Christmas stories is “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. I will assume that you are familiar with the story and/or the various movie versions of Ebenezer Scrooge and how he is visited on a Christmas Eve, first by his dead partner in business, Jacob Marley, followed by visits from the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Future.

One of my favorite non-Biblical Christmas stories is “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens. Even if you’ve never read the book, you probably have seen movie versions and are familiar with the characters from Tiny Tim to Ebeneezer Scrooge. The plot line centers around the character Scrooge being visited by the three ghosts of Christmas.

One of the things I asked for and received for Christmas was a coloring book and crayons. When I made my request, my family gave me a number of strange looks. I don’t usually enjoy crafts, and I’m not very good at making crafts either, so the question was asked why?

I was reading through a book the other day and the author was remembering a TV show called, “I Dream of Jeannie”, and how when he was growing up he thought it would be great to have a Jeannie of his own, ‘complete with sexy outfit, who could blink a grilled-cheese sandwich out of thin air, all the while cleaning my room and doing my homework.’ His point was it…

Many of us received new calendars for the year 2012 and already the dates are marked with important reminders: birthdays of loved ones, anniversaries, and other important dates. I would like to add a few more dates for you to please mark.

As we enter into a New Year, many people take time to reflect and sometimes make resolutions for the New Year. Sometimes we discover that we need to make a ‘course correction.’ This is a good thing, otherwise we end up even more off course.

Happy New Year! We hear that expression a lot as we begin a new year. Happiness is often a goal many people have. A study was once done of mothers from different countries. Italian mothers wanted their children to be ‘good’; Japanese mothers wanted their children to be ‘successful’; and American mothers wanted their children to be ‘happy.’

By the time you read this, the New Year will have started. Maybe you will have made New Year’s resolutions which have already been broken. Good for you. At least you tried. At least you recognized a change you needed to make either in yourself or in the world and you made the attempt. Just don’t let the failure stop you. If you failed, try again. If you have not…

By the time you read this, the New Year will have started. Maybe you will have made New Year’s resolutions which have already been broken. Good for you. At least you tried. At least you recognized a change you needed to make either in yourself or in the world and you made the attempt. Just don’t let the failure stop you. If you failed, try again. If you have not…

Summer has officially arrived. A time when many have an opportunity to take a vacation, take some time off work, change their routine, at least for a few days. A time when children are free from school and parents receive the mixed blessings

I don’t see as well as I used to. It’s inconvenient and frustrating. Fortunately there are things I can do to help correct my vision, which is also inconvenient and frustrating, but it is better than not seeing or having blurred vision. Of course, I’m not the only one suffering from blurred vision.

There is a difference between choosing to serve and being a servant. Unfortunately most Christians fail to make the distinction. Choosing to serve allows us to be in control. We do what we want, when we want, how we want. There’s really not a lot of discipleship in that kind of service, and many times such attitudes actually hurt the church, hurt people, and becomes a spiritual roadblock for the…

About a thousand years ago when I was young and single a group of us who did not have dates would talk about what dating was like. I contributed very little to the discussion, simply because as the saying goes, ‘the little I knew about the subject wouldn’t help rabbits reproduce.’

John tells a wonderful story about some friends of his who have a wonderful, strong-willed daughter, Shauna, who when she was 4 years old kept trying to go AWOL on her tricycle. One day Shauna’s mom told her, ‘Look, Shauna, there’s a tree right here, and there’s a driveway right there. You can ride your tricycle on the sidewalk in between the driveway and the tree, but you can’t go…

Many of us are watching the Olympics. At the Olympics we see many of the world’s finest athletes competing against one another as they represent their country. We see the results, but we don’t see what goes on behind the scenes. These athletes did not just happen to show up at Vancouver.

I would like for you to think about your faith for a moment. Is there a person who was primarily responsible for introducing you to Jesus? Is there a particular event that had a deep and profound impact on your faith development, maybe a camp or retreat or series of youth meetings? Can you remember an anchor that you could always return to, no matter how far you may have…

We live in a fast-paced, drive-thru, microwave ready, fast action, quick relief, internet ready, immediate results, instant isn’t fast enough world. But more times than not, our faith is a go, stop, 1 step forward, 2 steps back, 3 steps forward, and countless steps side-ways type of process.

From Donn’s Desk:
Martin Luther once spent three days in a black depression over something that had gone wrong. On the third day his wife came downstairs dressed in mourning clothes. “Who’s dead?” he asked her. “God,” she replied. Luther rebuked her, saying, “What do you mean, God is dead? God cannot die.” “Well,” she replied, “the way you’ve been acting I was sure He had!”

Our Thanksgiving Pot-Luck Dinner will be Sunday, November 21st, after our worship service. For our dinner, the turkeys will be provided, (go ahead, make the comment, smile), and if you would like to donate some money for the purchase of a turkey just see Rev. Cindy or myself.

Soon it will be Thanksgiving. What do you think of when you hear the word, ‘Thanksgiving’ meaning the holiday, not the attitude? Some people think of ‘f’ words: family, friends, football, and of course food. My ‘f’ word when I think of Thanksgiving is Franklin, as in Benjamin. Yep, ask me to think of an ‘f’ word associated with Thanksgiving and that’s what I come up with.

Some of you may be familiar with a saying attributed to Mother Theresa, “I know that God will not give me more than I can handle, but sometimes I worry that God trusts me too much!”  I am sure that many of us can relate to Mother Theresa’s sentiment.

Because we are people of faith, when we are feeling overwhelmed, we remember the basic truth affirmed with both the birth…

Back when I was going to school, each class began with the teacher ‘calling the roll’. This meant that the teacher would read each student’s name and the student would answer ‘present’ or ‘here’, and the teacher would mark the attendance record. There were three marks that were used, ‘P’ for present, ‘A’ for absent, and ‘T’ for tardy which meant that the student arrived late to class.

You go to the grocery store, buy some groceries, get your change and notice the cashier has given you 27 cents too much, and your correct them. It’s not big money, but it’s the right thing to do. Even if the cashier gave you 27 dollars too much change you would correct them, not because of the money, but because it’s the right thing to do.

One of the sad things that happen as we grow out of childhood is our loss of a sense of discovery.

Children are much better at the scientific method than adults are. Children don’t care if their hypothesis is correct or not, they want to see the experiment. What will happen? They get excited about the result.

Some of you may have seen the movie, “A Beautiful Mind” based on the life of John Nash. John Nash was hailed as one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century. To say he was a genius would be an understatement.

Have you ever noticed how differently people react to a scale? For the most part, kids are excited, they want to see how much they weigh, usually for them, the higher the number the more excited they are. Adults generally are not as excited, for many of them the number is already too high.