Posts by Pastor Eric (Page 15)

• “To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’ For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man…

[Following is a note I wrote a few years ago. At the end of next month a film version of The Shack will come out. Jumping to conclusions, I suspect the film version will be more theologically confused than the book. I encourage you to read this note and pass it on to friends who may have liked the book. It will challenge them, but it also has the potential to set them…

By rights, every Christmas ever celebrated should have begun with a worship service. It’s literally hard to imagine something more appropriate. With Christmas now long buried under commercialism, this year we have the opportunity to vote with our feet against the trivializing of the One who is genuinely glorious, high, and noble. Life in Christ requires intentionality:…

• Years ago, riding a train across Switzerland (some of you know this story), I met a gracious woman who was returning home from a Bible study. She invited me to stay a few days with her family in a small alpine village. As God would have it, I was there the day she and her mother met with the pastor of their decreasingly-biblical church to tell him they were leaving. It…

• As Julie mentioned in announcements, the president of Covenant College, Derek Halvorson, will be with us Sunday. If you are in high school, or have kids in high school, you’ll want to come early enough to catch announcements. You’ll also have a chance to meet Dr. Halvorson between services. • I think I’ve mentioned a couple times that I’m reading Ian Murray’s one-volume…

• Join us for the Thanksgiving service this evening at 7:00. Be the one-in-ten who turns back to give thanks. Also, remember this coming Sunday is our JOINT SERVICE at 10:00a and, if you would, pass word along to anyone you may suspect is unaware. Thanks. • In a mailer on behalf of persecuted…

• Certain kinds of people are always in conflict, and with time we grow weary of both the person and his or her argument. But Jesus himself was often in conflict. What does necessary, godly conflict look like? Join us for men’s ministry this Saturday at 8:00a — breakfast, fellowship and discussion.

• Most of us assume we have certain natural giftings common to humankind, among them an innate understanding of what love is; how to identify it, offer it, receive it. It’s only when we take seriously that God alone is love, and we fall radically short of the glory of God, that we begin to think of love as something we must learn slowly, carefully, even painfully. So it…

• A few weeks ago I said from the pulpit that I felt there was a spiritual lethargy in the congregation. But I think, now, the lethargy was in me, not you. Over the past few weeks the Lord has been making a number of my own sins and failings evident. It has been a difficult but necessary couple of weeks, and I feel now the relief of having prayed through things from which…

• “And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up,” (Gal 6:9). Stay at it. Keep your head in the battle. It won’t be long, now, and “the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Rom. 16:20) • This is my strategy as a minister: if I can contribute to your strong and deep connection to God in Christ, you will do…