ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS October 5, 2025 What a day! What a day!! I love our Blessing of the Animals and Stuffed Animals. It is a really good community event. There were so many families who were simply going to the Bush Library or coming back from Collins Park, and they stopped to see what was occurring. They quickly discovered some wonderful hospitality from our folks, and then learning how
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS October 4, 2025 Last Sunday, we talked about growing larger by growing smaller—by placing an emphasis on fellowship groups. Why do we do this? My answer, and I think the answer of Cypress Creek Christian Church, is people matter. There is always the guy who is the center of attention in a group of five or five hundred, but for the rest of us, what does
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS October 3, 2025 In yesterday’s Bible Study, we were looking at the story of Moses encountering a burning bush that was not consumed. Of course, it is the marvelous story where Moses encounters an angel/God in the burning bush, and in that experience, Moses is invited to return to Egypt, confront Pharaoh, and to guide the people from slavery to freedom. Someone in the group asked
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS October 2, 2025 Last Sunday, I talked about how we continue to grow as a church, but how our growth will occur by us intentionally getting smaller. At first, it sounds counterintuitive, if not outright nonsense. It’s one thing if growth by itself is the goal. If we were trying to generate numbers alone, then bigger at any cost would be the driving and blinding force.
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS October 1, 2025 It is the first of October, and being the old curmudgeon that I am, I find myself wondering where the year has gone. There were so many tasks I wanted to accomplish this year, and now I only have a quarter of the year to get everything accomplished that is currently waiting to be finished… and, of course, the stuff that has yet
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS September 30, 2025 As many of you may have heard and some of you might have smelled, we had a little electrical fire at the church on Saturday. I don’t want to be dismissive of what occurred, but I am thankful I had a small wedding in the chapel; otherwise, no one would have been at the church on Saturday. We might have created a whole
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS September 29, 2025 Prayer for the Week: Could it be that we were created for something important? Could it be that we have been called for something impactful? Could it be that you, Most Generous and Amazing God, have been shaping us, teaching us, preparing us
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS September 28, 2025 So yesterday, I officiated a little wedding in the chapel—a lovely young couple. About 20 minutes before the wedding started, I got two rather large splinters from a piece of wood, right on the end of my left index finger, including one of them going under my fingernail. I was able to quickly pull out the one under the fingernail, but the other
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS September 27, 2025 Tomorrow, we will begin a five-week journey of casting a vision of where we are going as a church, using one of our Core Values each week as a sort of jumping-off place. And yes, I am using a space metaphor for going somewhere; the implication, of course, is that we are going somewhere we’ve never been before. Because the Gospel is always
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGS September 26, 2025 I was recently reminded of a Tony Campolo quote that I’ve loved. Tony once famously said, “Mixing religion and politics is like mixing ice cream and horse manure. It doesn’t hurt the manure, but it ruins the ice cream.” Ruin is probably an understatement, and my concern is that the mix of religion and politics right now is making a stinky mess of