Author: John Smith

By Jacob Lee What happens when you take away the junior high students’ favorite retreat place and replace it with a completely new one? What happens when you take away the big, shaggy dog that everyone loves to pet on their way to the familiar chapel? What happens when you break the news to your...

By Laurel Kehl 200 million. That’s the number of believers presently facing persecution. 60% of those are children. There are stories coming out of Iraq of children who are refusing to give up their faith in Jesus when asked to do so by their ISIS captors. When they refuse…they are killed in front of their...

By Brad Currie James 1:14-15: “..but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” At Life Line, we are a group of courageous men who are authentically...

By Laurel Kehl “I am Sunni, they are Shia. We study English together. We say Allah together and we say Jesus!” – Halima, ESL student Regardless of what Halima meant by her last sentence, I caught the sentiment, and it made my day! I don’t know about you, but I can get very overwhelmed as...

By Joyce Johnson A favorite hymn of mine is “Come Thou Fount of Many Blessings”. I like the line “Tune my heart to sing thy grace” because my heart needs a LOT of tuning! Another line in this hymn that I resonate with is at the start of verse two: “Here I raise my Ebenezer”....

By Janae Robinson We serve a God who is ever in the process of reshaping our understanding of reality. I boldly proclaim, “Blessed are those who get it all right,” but Jesus responds, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” I shout from the rooftops, “Blessed are those who are holy and righteous and perfect,” but...

By Jane Evans “Equipping, training, and mobilizing” for ministry to our community: These three verbs are used in our vision statement to explain what each one of us in the congregation needs to do. Just as an athlete cannot hope to do her best; an auto mechanic cannot fix a car; a new parent cannot...

By Dyan Fischer Being raised in a frugal Dutch household, I learned to hate waste and to find ways to make use of what we had. Knowing that we have sisters and brothers who are struggling at times to stretch their budgets, pay bills and still put enough food on the table – combined with...

By Ward Shope Dr. Neil Clark Warren, founder of eHarmony.com, tells us there are 29 dimensions of compatibility worth looking at for a happy, lasting relationship. While I have no idea whether he is right or not, it makes sense in any relationship for us to know ourselves, to know those we know, and to...

By Joshua Earman Next time you are in the grocery store, ask yourself, “What would it take for those who are shopping with me to hear the message of why Jesus Christ came?” What would it take for the man leaning toward the selection of chicken legs? What about the woman pushing her cart heavy-laden...

By Anthony Gammage “I’m really busy the next two months, but after that maybe we can connect.” This was my response to an incoming seminarian who lived up the stairs from me and one day asked if we could get together. Four months of awkward stairwell interactions passed and I was never able to “squeeze”...

Sometimes the news of the day is more important than the random thoughts of the blogger. So today, we want to point you to the Town Meeting that took place last Sunday, September 7th. Most of you will probably have read the letter Ron sent out summarizing the content of that meeting. But in case...