All In A Days Grace

      As Christmas comes each year so comes the conversation of “church”.  Those that don’t attend regularly make a special effort to go to Christmas Eve service with the family. It’s a special time filled with nostalgia and sentiment. Yet in between those memories of Christmases of the past is usually a quiet tug; a pull to step back into that thing called “church”.  This is where the turmoil can begin. The questions, the concerns, that battle. “But it’s been so long”, “I don’t know if I can make the time again”, “I don’t know how to start.” Half the battle in people’s minds is wondering if they “belong” at church again. And what church do they belong? Where do they even jump back in? Is it that church they saw advertised on the billboard? Maybe the church they pass on the way to work each morning. A side note to all of this is a question that I so often get this time of year from  congregants....”How can I serve this season?” “How can I help my co...

  “Pray without ceasing.” I think historically that statement by Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 confuses us. We might also say if we’re being honest; that it stresses us out! Praying is something we have all come to realize is a vital part of our faith walk. We realistically know that prayer needs to be part of our lives. Most also know that it is something we should do daily. But “without ceasing”? Is that even possible? Lord, we have jobs and activities and lives that we are engaged with on a constant basis. How are we going to participate in the act of prayer without stopping? How is that even possible? Well in order to understand how we can possible do that, we have to first understand what prayer is. We tend to interpret prayer as an “ask” line to God. “God can you…” “Lord I need…” “Father help…” Without even realizing it, in many ways, we have turned prayer into a one-way monologue instead of the dialogue it was always meant to be. Communicating with anyone requires a bac...