Wellington Church of Christ

Our new series will begin with a teenager named Daniel.  I think it’s very important to not forget his age.

When we think of Daniel, I think most of us see that picture in our head of the man with the gray beard in the lion’s den, but when the Book of Daniel begins with Daniel as a young man.

Daniel was a very impressive, very well-educated young man with more character and integrity as a teenager than most people achieve in their whole life.

As we finish up our current series this Sunday, I’m very excited, and already looking forward to our new series, called, Nothing New: The Uncompromising Christ in a Compromising Culture.

Don’t get me wrong, Jesus will continue to be the focus of every lesson.  Nothing other than Christ will ever take center stage in any sermon that I preach, but what I will emphasize and the primary question that I will answer is, “How do I live in this increasingly bizarre world?”

Adventures in wild places has always been my favorite pastime.  Whether it be the exploration of forests, mountains, canyons, deserts, caves, beaches, rivers or any other wild place, laying my eyes on places I’ve never seen is one of the things I like best.

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Revelation 22:12-21.  If you’re not familiar, this is the last part of the last chapter of the Bible.  The words are the words of Christ.  Here’s what He says:

In our day to day lives, as we look at the world we live in, it is impossible to tell how God is working on a large scale.  This wasn’t always the case.

In the Old Testament, God made his large scale plan clear many times:

I’m overjoyed that we’re going to be together again!  I can’t wait to preach to faces again and not stare into my own face in the selfie mode of an iPhone while preaching!

You’ve heard me say before that when I preach that I’m not just preaching to you but that I’m preaching to myself as well, but that has never been truer than it has been lately.  I have, quite literally, been preaching to myself.

Who Are Those Sacks For?

The sacks on the table at the front of the sanctuary are donations for Carpenter Place, formerly known as Maude Carpenter Children’s Home, a girls home in Wichita.

Unlike other girls homes, Carpenter Place provides a Christian home environment.  Their aim is help each girl realize her true potential in Christ, with an ultimate goal of reuniting that girl with her family.

A part of the Christian life is struggling with doubt.  Worse than having doubts, is the results of our doubts. 

For instance, there was a time that I was doing some rock climbing with a friend.  He was inexperienced and didn’t have much confidence out on the ledges.  We came to a place where you had to put your hands on a ledge about four feet high and then do a combination of a jump while pushing yourself up to get to the higher ledge.

The best part of climbing a mountain is the moment that you reach the very top and look back at where you came from.  This moment is what I like to refer to as the payoff. 

I like to refer to it as the payoff because in order to have made it, there was a price that had to be paid.  The price was advanced training and strenuous hiking.  Most often, the more difficult the hike, the greater the payoff.

This year Rex, Nathan and me are going to Honduras on a week-long mission trip.  This will be Nathan’s first year, Rex’s second and my eighth. 

What do we do there?  We work with a Honduran mission organization called Predisan.  There are a few areas of service.  One is called latrine projects.  Basically, we build outhouses for families that live in the remotest part of Honduras.