There are a lot of awesome things about growing up in a Christian family. Knowing you are grounded in your faith and having been steeped in the routines of it for a lifetime is a huge blessing. However, it can also mean that these routines can become rote or we take them for granted. Christmas carols can easily fall into this category. Especially if you are someone like me who has a pretty decent memory.
Being a teacher, I get all sorts of questions, commentaries and suggestions on what to do with “all that time off” that I am blessed with each year (and of course, I also receive my fair share of eye rolls, sighs and “must be nice”). No matter how I choose to spend these two glorious months, without fail, they always go quickly and every year I seem to blink and it’s already September. I have
If you’ve been at ForestView lately, you’ve likely been hearing a new song we’ve been introducing on worship team called You Make Me Brave. As I was reflecting on my own life and the journey I’m on, I thought it a fitting title for my musings. You see, the end of this summer marks two years since I’ve moved to Hamilton and started coming to ForestView. Two years since I left my comfort zone, the
We’re several weeks into 2014 now. As usual, the year started with the flurry of resolutions, goals, vows to do better. Programs got back up and running, and after the busy Christmas season, many of us were happy to settle back into routine. What better way to start our year, to prepare our hearts for what’s to come, than with a week of prayer? Being relatively new to Forestview, this year was my first time
December, despite the best of intentions, can seem like a mad rush. As hard as we try to remember the “reason for the season,” to keep Christ in Christmas, it seems the month always flies by like a dash to the finish line of some hare-brained race of socializing, eating and celebrating. Before we know it, Christmas is in the rear-view mirror, we are packing up the decorations and about to embark on a new
September comes so quickly every year. It seems that no sooner do we kick back, relax, and enjoy the sunshine (or what little we had this year); we are bombarded with back to school ads and pumpkin spice lattes. Gone are the carefree days of camp and cottages, it’s back to routine, packing lunches and the general busyness that comes with this new season. I don’t know where you’re coming from. Maybe your summer was
“A person who is lonely should dig into a community, give himself to a community, humble himself before his friends, initiate community, teach people to care for each other and love each other.” – Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz Community is a word that gets tossed around a lot in church circles today, it seems to me. We are called to “live in community,” and “do life together.” Forestview has co-opted the word community to
