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the life of your church….! Your Input is Required for the Church Strategic Plan by December 18 These are exciting days at Central United Church! Not only have we entered the Advent Season, when we anticipate the birth of our Savior, but we as a church family have embarked on the process of planning for … [Read more…]

the life of your church….! FROM THE MINISTER’S DESK The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.(Isaiah 11:6) In his essay Christianity and Poetry, Dana Gioia writes, “To stir faith in things … [Read more…]

the life of your church….! FROM THE MINISTER’S DESK This coming Sunday marks the beginning of the church season of Advent. The word Advent means coming. Because of the cultural emphasis on Christmas that surrounds us, we tend to think of Advent as preparation for Christmas—our Lord’s first coming. We get distracted from the historic emphasis of Advent … [Read more…]

the life of your church….! FROM THE MINISTER’S DESK “Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth.” (Psalm 98:8-9) When the psalmist writes that the mountains sing and the rivers clap their hands when they sense … [Read more…]

the life of your church….! FROM THE MINISTER’S DESK This coming Sunday we mark as Remembrance Sunday. We will hear again Jesus’ saying, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Do you aspire to love this great? I am not sure I would lay down my life for my friends; … [Read more…]

the life of your church….! FROM THE MINISTER’S DESK “Who is God?” Scripture never answers this question directly. Scripture answers this question indirectly by posing two other questions. “What does God do on our behalf? What does God effect within us?” What does God do for us? He incarnates Himself in Jesus of Nazareth (which always includes what he has … [Read more…]

the life of your church….! FROM THE MINISTER’S DESK “But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea.” (Jonah 1:4) If you had an employee who, like Jonah, did the exact opposite of what you commissioned him to do; who you found sleeping on the job; who did everything one could imagine in order … [Read more…]

the life of your church….! FROM THE MINISTER’S DESK For those of us who went to Sunday school as a child, mention of the prophet Jonah immediately calls to mind images of a whale depositing Jonah on a beach somewhere after three harrowing days in its belly. The ‘great fish’, however, only appears in three … [Read more…]

the life of your church….! FROM THE MINISTER’S DESK Canadians will be celebrating Thanksgiving this weekend. Think about all the givens we receive at God’s hand day by day. Did any of us cause the sun to rise today? Will we cause it to set so we could have the night hours for rest? Consider the air we breathe … [Read more…]

the life of your church….! FROM THE MINISTER’S DESK “Increase our faith!”, cry the apostles. Like the apostles, we too can feel inadequate and ask for increased faith. Our Lord’s response to the disciples’ request may sound demanding at first reading. ‘If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, … [Read more…]