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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ATHENS VINEYARD!!!

13. March 2010

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ATHENS VINEYARD!!!

That’s right, the Athens Vineyard ‘launched’ in March of 2000, so on Sunday March 28, we are going to have a celebration Sunday!  It will be so fun to remember what God has done among us over the past 10 years.  It’s really quite important to take the time to pause and look back over [...]

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My Funeral?

4. March 2010

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My Funeral?

As I was dropping off my teenage son at school today, we were listening to Blackbird by Alter Bridge.  Since he is learning to play electric guitar, I asked him to learn this song and play it at my funeral.  He laughed and went in to school. As I drove on to work, the incident made [...]

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Meditation on Lent

17. February 2010

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Meditation on Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday, and a day when many Christians will gather somewhere and get a cross made of ashes swiped across their forehead as a sign of repentance and reminder of mortality. A clergy person or, in some cases, a lay person, applies the ashes with variations of the phrase: “Remember you are dust [...]

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Communicating with the Opposite Sex

12. January 2010

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Communicating with the Opposite Sex

We are excited to let you know that Sunday January 17, we will have a guest speaker, our very own Fletcher McClelland.  He will be speaking about our new Life Team we are getting underway – Marriage and Family Enrichment. Fletcher is a licensed marriage counselor and brings knowledge and a passion for this extremely important [...]

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Storms (again)

22. September 2009

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Storms (again)

I write about storms often. To me they represent something both beautiful and terrifying.  Life growth usually happens in and after storms, but wow, do we ever hate them when we’re in them. Lots of my friends have tattoos.  Sometimes they ask me if I’m ever going to get one.  I always say that it would [...]

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Happiness

25. August 2009

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Happiness

Being asked to take up our cross doesn’t sound like a path to happiness, does it? This article got me thinking about happiness and our unquenchable thirst for it.  The article is about online dating, and how it can be risky, esp. since it feeds our insatiable need to follow unrealistic feelings which are built [...]

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Keys and Kids

14. August 2009

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Keys and Kids

When I first looked at my text for this message, I never dreamed it was going to end up being about children.  It’s that passage where Jesus talks about building his church on the Rock, and the gates of hell not prevailing against it, and how he was going to give the church the authority [...]

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Control

7. August 2009

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Control

We try to control God.   I know, we draw back when we hear that. But we do. It’s hard to let God be in charge.  That’s what being Lord is all about, but most of us want to control our lives, our circumstances, etc.  And we try to control God.  We even insist that he come [...]

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You Leak

1. August 2009

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You Leak

In the message, Interpreting Signs, I concluded that the Pharisees and Sadducees were blind to the signs at work around them.  Well, I don’t want to be guilty of the same thing.  What are the signs of God’s work around us? The most overriding one is how God fills us with his Spirit in our time.  [...]

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Joining the Missional Story

25. July 2009

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Joining the Missional Story

Jesus is Missional.  So Jesus feeds the 5000 (maybe 20,000 counting women and children) – Matt 14.  Then, when Matt 16 begins, there are 4,000 who need to eat (maybe 15,000?), and the disciples say, “Where could we get enough bread in this remote place to feed such a crowd?” What the heck?  They [...]

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