Revitalize Your Church

We cannot always choose our setting, situation or circumstance. Our plans and ideas don't always go the way we had hoped.  The only thing we can choose is our response. Life has a strange way of suddenly careening out of control, and putting us in the ditch. One thing I know about the ditch - nobody ever intends to go there. It just happens. (A variation of a popular bumper sticker: "Stuff Happens") "Bad Luck" often brings with it a sense of despair and pessimism. When problems pile high, we lose our hope, and find ourselves singing the children's jump-rope rhyme: "Same song, second verse. It ought to get better, but it's gonna get worse." Whatever happens -- you can make the worst of it, or you can make the best of it. The choice is yours. Wherever you are in life, you can just sit there and complain, or you can start planting a garden. If you plant, you won't see results right away. Tiny seeds need time to grow - but they will sprout, f...

How shall I feel at the judgement, if multitudes of missed opportunities pass before me in full review, and all my excuses prove to be disguises of my cowardice and pride? -- Dr. W. E. Sangster

The other day, while casting a line, I began to think about how fishing and discovering opportunities are alike. If you want to "land" a few golden opportunities -- you have to go fishing! Whether at home, work, church, or civic organization -- you can catch a few golden opportunities, if you apply certain laws of fishing. 1. Go where they are. Nobody has ever caught a fish in the bathtub or the backyard wading pool -- and you won't catch opportunities by waiting around for them to come to you. The chances of catching a fish increase greatly when you go fishing. How much energy and time are you investing in future possibilities? How often do you look for the opportunities around you? Where do you want to go in life? Does the path you are currently following lead to that destination? 2. Keep your eyes open. Good fishermen are always watching for signs of a hungry fish. Often, a causual observer will not even notice -- but an angler will see the slightest indication. When...

Read the following poem three times slowly: He who binds to himself a joy, does the winged life destroy. But he who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternity's sunrise. -- William Blake What does this mean to you?

"In the bleak midwinter, snow on snow, snow on snow." That's how the old song goes, and peering out the picture window, I identified completely. "Arrgh!" I grumbled to no one in particular, "fourteen inches of obligation!" My kids looked out the same window. "Yippee!!" they shouted, and rushed to put on their snow clothes. For them it was fourteen inches of opportunity! Same snow -- two completely different perspectives. I wish I could be more like my kids. I wish, my first response to winter would be snow angels rather than shovels. When severe adulthood squeezes out childish play, the snow becomes an unpleasant burden. Snow on snow on snow. The other day I muttered something about "bleak midwinter" to my wife Cathy. She rebuked me gently. "It's not so bleak, honey. In fact, it's like a beautiful post card out there! Just look, the snow sparkles like diamonds!" I guess it is true that beauty lies in the eyes of th...

I like this quote -- and used it in my sermon at church this morning. Great, Lord, is Thy day. Let it not be small upon us. -- St. Ephraim