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Uphill from Here

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For the past 3 weeks, I've been on vacation. The better part of a month of rest, reading, hanging out with my family, returning to familiar places, stepping across the threshold of some new ones. I'm looking forward to sharing some of those experiences (and how God met me in some surprising places) with the church on Sunday. I spent some of the time reading. These are, more or less (not including the mystery novel on the nightstand) the books I either read or finished reading. From the funny to the thought-provoking. In the weeks before my vacation started, I was aware of fatigue. Getting tired. Looking forward to the change and the rest. I'm blessed to know that in my absence, the people I care about are in good hands  -- our deacons, leadership board, guest preachers are all people I trust with this care. But when I locked my office door on that Sunday in July, got in my car and drove homeward, I felt relieved. Like I'd accomplished something, and earned a break. Over...
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This Book: Wisdom (Matthew 5 v13-15)

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I think that if Ruth (whose story is told in the Bible's The Book of Ruth) had a bumper sticker, it would be Proverbs 16 v3. Commit your works to the Lord and your plans will be achieved. That word that gets translated ' commit;' in the original language that word does not just mean just grit your teeth and push through no matter what. " I am committed! I am going to get this done!" T hat's not what the word means in the original. Its true meaning is more like ' to surrender something to someone else.' T he word actually means ' to roll away.' Like w hen you're carrying something that is too heavy for you to carry yourself, you let it drop and you roll it to the feet of someone who is stronger. Someone who can help you lift it so you are carrying it together.
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This Book: Revelation - Look! (Revelation 1 v1-8)

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  To see the full message, scroll to the bottom and click through. There are four big 'scenes' in the book of Revelation. We're going to pause in each one, standing in John’s sandals, and look around. To see what John saw in those landscapes. To hear what he heard.  Got your travelling shoes on? Let’s go visit the Island, the Temple, the Wilderness, and the Mountaintop.    ______  John, a man in his 80s, stood trial under Emperor Domitian, and was found guilty. He was torn away from everyone he knew. He was chained and (literally) shipped to an isolated island in the Mediterranean called Patmos, with no expectation of ever going home. Leaving behind the people he loved to possibly face the same kind of trial.   He had been a child, growing up playing and working on a lake—a circle of water—surrounded by the green and the gold of the hills of Galilee.  He was now an old man, praying and working on a circle of stone and trees entirely surrounded by ...
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This Book: Epistles – You've Got Mail! (Galatians 1 v1-10)

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To see the full message, scroll to the bottom and click through. For the last few months, we've been walking slowly through the aisles of this library of books.   We’ve looked at the Old Testament books of history, law, poetry, prophecy, philosophy. There are fiction stories and love stories. There are questions that never get answered.   In the New Testament, we’ve looked at the Gospels and the book of Acts: historical events of the life of Jesus and the people who shared his world and joined him on his mission of sharing God's love.  Next week we're going to look a little bit at the book of Revelation. This week, between the history of Jesus' life and of the early church, and our attempts to understand Revelation are these letters that we sometimes call ‘epistles:’ people writing back and forth, sharing their lives with each other, sharing information, sharing their perspectives and experiences when they can't be together.   So as we study the Bible—...
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CBOQ Assembly 2026 Review (Prayer) - Acts 3-4

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    To see the full message, scroll to the bottom and click through.   For the last few years, the  S unday after our  a nnual  C anadian  B aptists of  Ontario  and  Quebec   (CBOQ)   Assembly ,  I 've  been taking a week to think about it ,  and then to summarize and  t o share the things that really landed for me .   ______   There's   an  interesting thing that pastors sometimes  say  when  we're  talking about prayer in our congregations :  prayer can be a tough sell.     It can be tough for a pastor to get a congregation excited about prayer, especially getting people to pray together. People just  don't  seem to get excited about prayer.    I really wonder why that is true.  It was not true for  the first generation of believers  who we  encounter  in the book of  Acts .  They were excite...
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