I’ve attended over a hundred churches. Most were visits while searching for “home.” Some were on trips spanning a weekend. And a few were simply to see what goes on in there. Of the “home” churches, there were Christian Reformed, Brethren, Baptist, nondenominational, and Evangelical Free. The circle of “visited” churches stretches to include Anglican, […]
Category: church
Sunday in Rochester
Fresh from a hearty dousing at Niagara Falls, we rolled into downtown Rochester for the weekend. On Sunday we walked to a nearby church — and came away even more refreshed than from the Falls. Their service featured a greeting, two songs, teaching from Romans, and two more songs. That was it. Gather our attention, […]
The quandary of shepherding groups
We recently visited a church of twenty people. They invited us to stay for lunch, and by the end we knew names. A week earlier we’d attended a much larger gathering. Two or three people greeted us, but mostly it was like sitting in a movie theater — hundreds of people watching the stage. There’s […]
Training in reality
What Christians believe can be viewed as quaint. Eugene Peterson refers to this in his book, The Contemplative Pastor, and he doesn’t like it. When some business person shakes his hand after church and says, “This was wonderful, Pastor, but now we have to get back to the real world,” Peterson bristles. He isn’t taking […]
What we live without
We went sailing with three friends. Four times we motored out to where the wind seemed to be but wasn’t. No matter. It was delightful on the water, and we enjoyed dinner while drifting on the tide. When dusk fell we motored back to our slip and drove home. Would we do it again? Probably. Would we do it every week, […]
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