Rob Wegner is one of the teaching pastors at Granger Community Church. This past weekend he kicked off his message with a pre-recorded video filmed in a graveyard. One cemetery. . . two lives, two stories, two options:

Today was a great day! Maybe it was just me being happy to be back with the CC family, but it just seemed like the singing and sense of celebration and praise was up a notch today. And then Tim got up and knocked out of the park with his message on the sovereignty of God. He taught on being able to have peace and find joy and contentment in whatever God has for us. Amen!

I loved the way he summed up the ‘Big Bang Theory’ - “First there was nothing. . . then it exploded.” Priceless!

And then this quote from C.S. Lewis was awesome: "Love involves trusting the beloved beyond the evidence, even against much evidence. No man is our friend who believes in our good intentions only when they are proved." Wow! Those are just a few of the jewels that he passed along today. If you weren’t able to be with us, you can listen to the message here.

Laurie, Robert and I dropped by the Eckman’s last night to say good-bye and pray with them before they headed out. They initially thought that tomorrow would be their last Sunday at Christ’s Church, but their moving schedule changed, and so they are headed down to Georgia today.

They are certainly going to be missed, but the Lord has definitely been in the details surrounding their move. It sounds like Doug’s new job is going to be a perfect fit – God is good! Please continue to keep them in your prayers.

I just finished updating the church website with a new page containing Archived Sermons from this past year or so. You can still access the current messages by date on the original page, but all the archived messages can now be indexed by book of the Bible, series, or topic.

I thought this would be a good follow-up to my last post about the next book I intend to purchase. It’s a terrific post by Mark Driscoll on the difference between Religion and the Gospel.

Religion says, if I obey, God will love me. Gospel says, because God loves me, I can obey.
Religion has good people & bad people. Gospel has only repentant and unrepentant people.
Religion values a birth family. Gospel values a new birth.
Religion depends on what I do. Gospel depends on what Jesus has done.
Religion claims that sanctification justifies me. Gospel claims that justification enables sanctification.
Religion has the goal to get from God. Gospel has the goal to get God.
Religion sees hardships as punishment for sin. Gospel sees hardship as sanctified affliction.
Religion is about me. Gospel is about Jesus.
Religion believes appearing as a good person is the key. Gospel believes that being honest is the key.
Religion has an uncertainty of standing before God. Gospel has certainty based upon Jesus' work.
Religion sees Jesus as the means. Gospel sees Jesus as the end.
Religion ends in pride or despair. Gospel ends in humble joy.

Sarah purchased her first car today. It was previously owned by one of her friends from Taylor whose family lives in Saline, Michigan, just outside of Ann Arbor. They had graciously agreed to hold on to the car for us until we could drive up and pick it up this week while were were up here moving Sarah into her apartment. It sounds weird to say that we drove up to Michigan to pick up a car tonight, but that’s exactly what we did. Thankfully, it was only about hour north of Bowling Green. While we driving back, it dawned on me that over the past week, I have been in eight different states!

Check out this really interesting series of photographs, capturing various families of the world, what they eat and how much it costs week by week.

We arrived in Bowling Green at about 5:45 pm. It was about 470 miles from my Dad’s house in Salem. After rolling into town, we picked up the keys to Sarah's apartment at the front desk of one of the local motels which is also managed by the same properties that manage the apartments where Sarah will be living.  We drove over to the apartments, found the one assigned to Sarah, unlocked the door, walked in. . . and immediately thought. . . "Something's definitely not right here."  The living room was full of old furniture (she rented an unfurnished apartment). The hanging light in the kitchen was lying on the table with the junction box above it exposed. The exhaust vent was missing above the stove. There were several other things that indicated that this apartment was simply not ready to be rented. Read More...

THE MISSION: To get everything in this picture off of our carport and into our mini-van. We’re taking Sarah to graduate school in Ohio this week and since she will be living in an apartment, she needed some furniture. I needed a U-Haul. We took the bench seat out of the back of the van, along with one of the middle seats. But I still had my doubts. The Smiths let us borrow their luggage carrier that goes on top of the van. After some stategic placement. . .

Mission Accomplished! Here’s Sarah’s seat for the trip.

I really enjoyed this morning’s service! The mission team did a super job sharing about our trip to Chester last week! I appreciated Regula’s willingness to get our teen instrumentalists organized and ready to lead musically. They did an excellent job! The camp songs (with motions) were a lot of fun. I was touched by the testimonies - it was a powerful week. Unfortunately, we didn’t get them recorded, but I’ve put the multimedia presentation online.