A Gift to Children
“Good morning, Melissa!” With her voice ringing as if it were the brightest of bells, Lisa McCleish has welcomed each student and family by name at our preschool door for 17 years as the Director of Early Childhood Programs.
How Much Is Enough?
Even though I have been a member of staff since October 2022, I still get asked “How is the new job?”. Each time I easily answer with the same response, “I love it – it is amazing to work with a group of people who always give 110%!”
A Trip Down the Hall
By Joe Walker, Minister of Congregational Care I expect you’ll use the bathroom today. But you might not give any thought to the toilet as one symbol of a functional and peaceful society. War correspondent, Jane Ferguson, in her new book, No Ordinary Assignment, writes: “A short stroll down a dirt path between Read More...
A World that Shines with Life
Our shining creator, who protects, helps, and loves us. We see your vision for minga on earth as it is in heaven. Help us to have just what we need, and embrace us as we embrace our neighbors.
Heavy AND Hopeful
To the cherished congregation of Country Club Christian Church— With both heaviness and hope in my heart I announce that my last Sunday at Country Club Christian Church will be Sunday, August 13.
The Church Can Be….
I continue to be in a time of recreating – imagining – wondering. In these recent months with the pandemic not front and center in headlines, I am still grasping at a rhythm. I find I like predictability – to know what is coming, how to approach what’s next.
The Conversation Continues
One way to describe a sermon is as “a small piece of the Church’s ongoing conversation.” There are obviously two sides to that equation: there is what gets said prior to any given sermon that preachers account for (scholarly commentaries and everyday conversations), as well as the discourse that continues afterward, when the sermon is no longer the preacher’s but hopefully living on in the people who heard it.
Where Is Your Church?
By Rev. Joe Walker, Minister of Congregational Care If someone were to ask, “Where is your church,” how would you answer that question? Likely, your first response would be to give the location of the physical building, “It’s that beautiful gothic church on Ward Parkway.” During these summer months, you might also pause Read More...
Where Technology and Spirituality Meet
You and I share something in common when it comes to technology. No, it’s not our common understanding of the difference between a SDI cable and a XLR cable, a TRS cable, or any cable for that matter.
Making Sense of Mission by Rev. Tyler Heston
I wonder about God’s “mission” for us. What does that word even mean? I carried this question on the trip I took last weekend. Eleven middle schoolers and a couple other adults from our church community joined for our Middle School Service-Learning Trip to Des Moines, Iowa.
So Many Things
It’s hard to put my finger on “the one thing.” For me, it is more a flood of feelings, a series of small moments. They accumulate like layers of fertile soil. A hike up a rocky path in Nicaragua to a young friend's home with dirt floors. A human sling carrying a Read More...
Suggestions for Summer Spirituality
Reading is not just for learning but can be a form of prayer, a spiritual practice.
Sharing More Than Space
Someone has said that in the US, the public swimming pools integrated faster than the baptistries. Over the first one hundred years of our congregation’s history, we periodically partnered with sister churches in the African American community. One frequent partner for pulpit exchanges, choir exchanges, book groups, dinner groups and service projects Read More...
Practicing Sabbath
Six days of work are spent To make a Sunday quiet That Sabbath may return. It comes in unconcern; We cannot earn or buy it. Suppose rest is not sent Or comes and goes unknown, The light, unseen, unshown. - Wendell Berry, This Day, Collected and New Sabbath Poems I'm counting down Read More...
To Give or To Receive?
Five years ago, I spent a long day at the hospital while my husband had surgery. Once Dave was settled in a private room and began slowly recovering from surgery, a church member showed up with Winstead's burger and tots for my dinner. It was like bread from heaven.
