Posts by Pastor Eric (Page 17)

• As eternal beings for whom Peter describes earthly life as “the time of your exile,” it makes sense for us take the long view of things. Whatever you might accomplish this week, or even this year, is not so important as the overall direction of your life. What are you all about? Where’s this thing going?

• In the west, as distractions have increased and discretionary time has decreased, people skip worship. For most of us, all sorts of things qualify as sufficient reasons to skip worship, but worship itself hardly ever qualifies as a reason to skip all those other distractions. Oddly enough, if we were under persecution, those of us who had made the decision to continue…

• Men’s ministry Saturday Morning at 8:00. It’s time we dealt more forthrightly with all this: the average age for viewing porn in America is 10. In churches, it’s estimated that 40% of men are viewing porn.

» “…taking part in the relief of the saints— and this, not as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then by the will of God to us” 2 Cor 8:4-5. »  I am so grateful and encouraged by your response to the need at the Stachofsky’s. There were plenty of barriers to this: they live in Duval, the particular challenges they face are unfamiliar to most…

• Our annual meeting creates a space to speak to things that have no other venue: the associate pastor search, strategic thinking about finances, new missionaries, current initiatives in the congregation, overall vision for our character and ministries. The meeting will start around 10:00 am this Sunday and run for about 45 minutes. This is your church. Please join us.

• Men’s Ministry: This Saturday morning Garrett Grigas, son of Glen and Kris, will tell his story of abandoning Christ only to find out that Christ had not abandoned him. It’s an account filled with honesty and hope. Join us at 8:00 am for breakfast and fellowship, then Garrett’s journey at 9:00.

• My generation and, if you’re under 40, your generation especially, is far more eager to terminally analyze the problem than embrace the answer. Your generation’s tendencies (sadly) are a by-product of my generation — the psychologized generation — and connected to the Pandora’s Box that Freud opened in the generation before mine. We have a kind of fascination with what…

• All my adult life I’ve wrestled with the meaning of growing up in such a heavily psychologized culture. I recognize some value in psychology’s ability to describe patterns that help us understand how and why people behave as they do.

• The Men’s Night of Prayer begins tomorrow at Midnight and ends at 6:00 am with breakfast. A brief word on why we would do such a crazy thing.

• In this cultural moment, it’s all but impossible to speak of refugees, Syrian or otherwise, apart from politics. But we have to try. I’m all for government, as Paul is in Romans 13, and I appreciate T.S. Eliot’s observation that what we want of government, as Christians, is continued freedom to worship God and live faithful to him. We should continue to vote, write,…