E-News Article (Page 4)
Who is My Neighbor?
Who is My Neighbor? I just finished my second year as the High School dean at Wilderness Christian Assembly a couple of weeks ago. It was an exciting week of learning and fun! This year’s camp theme was “Who is My Neighbor” which is taken from the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke chapter 10. We spent the week learning what it truly means to be a good neighbor, who our true neighbors are, and why it is so important to be a good How COVID has affected us
Exploring ChatGPT from Openai for church
Today I received an article in my email inbox titled, “5 insanely practical ways for churches to use AI.” That is ironic because I was going to try to use the most popular AI, called ChatGPT to write this week’s E-News article. ChatGPT is self-defined as “an AI-powered language model developed by OpenAI, capable of generating human-like text based on context and past conversations.” ChatGPT can literally carry on a conversation with you, teach you a new language, write copy for advertising, summarize an article How COVID has affected us
Faith In Action – The Sheep and the Goats
The Sheep and the Goats – Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus tells a parable in the gospel of Matthew about Judgment Day when all the nations will be gathered before him. He says this will happen when the “Son of Man” returns to the earth. In essence, He is saying, “Ok. Time’s up. Game’s over. Let’s see how we did.” The King, Jesus, proceeds to separate all the people from every tribe, tongue, and nation into two groups. One, the “sheep” or How COVID has affected us
Planting Seeds
Some days I question whether I am making a difference. I wonder if the lessons I am teaching are reaching the kids. It is a hard balance to keep their attention, help them to learn a lesson, and have games and crafts pertaining to the story to help it stick. Often, despite my best efforts, they will walk away remembering the “fun” and not necessarily the lesson. I always think of the parable of the sower from Matthew 13. “That same How COVID has affected us
Nevertheless
By the time everyone reads this I will be at Bowling Green State University with our some of our high schoolers for a weeklong convention called CIY Move. The theme for this year’s convention is Nevertheless. This is taken from Galatians 2:20 (KJV). In this verse, Paul declares that he has crucified himself with Christ and the new life he lives is not his own, but Christ’s. Too often times, people treat Church like a drive through or supermarket. We roll up in How COVID has affected us
It’s Summer
What’s your plan? Every year summer comes around and we love it! The clear waters of the Manistee River or Torch Lake. Local small-town festivals and craft fairs are within driving distance. And northern Michigan weather is the best in the summer. We can warm up nicely during the day and then enjoy a bonfire at night (if Smoky Bear says it’s okay). However, if we aren’t careful, summer can slide right by us if we don’t map out what our summer plans look like. The same How COVID has affected us
Judging Others
Probably one of the best quoted Bible verses is Matthew 7:1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged”. People say it quite often. It’s surprising how often it is quoted by people that don’t read the Bible or even believe in God. Here is the thing about the Bible, it is a book, made up of 66 books, and you can’t just take bits and pieces to justify your stance on something. I have seen people take verses in How COVID has affected us
What a School Year!
Tonight is our last Youth Group meeting before kicking off our Summer schedule! Normally the school year seems to fly right on by, but this school year has felt longer than normal. I think this is due to the topics we’ve focused and worked on. We dove deep this school year. I handed out a letter to our youth parents at the beginning of this school year outlining the tough topics we’d be tackling, with multiple scriptures for each topic. How COVID has affected us
How Old is the Earth?
This was the question I received to answer on a recent Basecamp panel. The men had been asked to write down questions on 3×5 cards and turn them in. I thought this is a good question to address here as well. If you would have asked a scientist in the 1800s how old the earth was, they would have said between 20 and 400 million years old. This is based on famous Irish physicist and mathematician Lord Calvin’s calculation of how long How COVID has affected us
Say Cheese(y)
When I got married there was one thing my wife made sure we did every six months, whether I wanted to or not and whether we could afford it. We were going to the dentist. Interestingly, she doesn’t like going to the dentist, and I don’t mind going except for the times in our life when we didn’t have dental insurance. Most of those visits were uneventful. But there has been an occasion when we needed further work than just How COVID has affected us