Sunday Services at 10:00am
1155 Silas Deane Highway, Wethersfield
I still remember one of the lessons I taught to the NewLife Junior High kids way back when I was the youth pastor of the church. I played for them one of the simplest worship songs, and then encouraged them to change the words to make it more true to their heart and experience. The original song goes like this: Lord, you are more precious than silver...Keep Reading
As much as I enjoy the musical quality of so many modern worship songs, it has begun to feel like many of them are variations on the same theme: Hold on to your faith, for God is about to bring you a breakthrough! Certainly, we could all use some encouragement and inspiration as we navigate the challenges of life. But God’s ways are not our ways, and the process He uses to answer our prayers does not typically follow the neat pattern of (1) pray hard, (2) believe in faith, and (3) receive your breakthrough! One classic hymn that would NEVER be written today...Keep Reading
Expectations are a tricky thing. On the one hand, they can help us live life with purpose, goals, and hope for the future. But when we stop and reflect, we often find that so much of our bitterness and disillusionment in life has come because of expectations we placed on others – spouses, parents, friends, coworkers – that they did not meet. And this is just as true of our relationship with God. If we’re not careful, we can end up bitter at God because of expectations that we put on Him to do something that He has never promised. One of the clearest ways this is true is in our belief that if God is a good God who loves us, then He will certainly bring about good things in our lives, like NOW....Keep Reading
One of the mysteries of the gospel of John is that one of the disciples is referred to as “the disciple Jesus loved.” According to church history, this disciple is none other than John himself, the author of the book. Consider what you would be like if you saw that as your primary identity, the way you viewed yourself. ...Keep Reading
A popular line that I have often heard used in evangelism is “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” I believe that these words usually come from a well-intentioned place. The Christian who is speaking this line genuinely wants the one who does not believe in Jesus to know that God loves them, and that knowing and following God is far better than anything the world has to offer. The problem is, the line is only partially true. And this partial truth is more likely to lead someone to Hell than it is to a saving relationship with God. ...Keep Reading
This past Sunday, I preached on the parable of the Good Samaritan, a story that points to the sacrificial love and mercy that Jesus showed us when we were broken by our sin and headed towards eternal separation from God. This story always reminds me of a short story/drama which I read soon after I became a believer, called The Ragman by Walter Wangerin. I’ve reprinted it below:...Keep Reading
The news spread like wildfire through the little village. The prodigal son had returned. Months after disrespecting his father, his village, and his God, here he was, walking back towards his home, gaunt and disheveled in his appearance. And oh did the townspeople scoff and sneer: “He’s only home because he’s hungry. If he still had money, no way he would have come back.”...Keep Reading
I was 21 years old and spending a lot of time in ministry to teenagers when the movie Titanic was at the height of its popularity. I distinctly remember the swooning sounds of many a teenage girl over Jack, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, as he won Rose’s (Kate Winslet’s) heart and then (spoiler alert) gave up his life to save hers by choosing to remain in the frozen water while she floated safely on the piece of debris from the ship....Keep Reading
I grew up going to church; however, God did not truly become real until I was 18, right at the beginning of college, as the result of attending a youth group the summer after my high school graduation. As a new Christian, I was full of young enthusiasm for God, for the Bible, and for Christian fellowship, but also very unsure of who God was and what it meant to know and follow Him. Three months after becoming a believer, I went on a retreat with Musicon Ministries. ...Keep Reading
Yesterday was Memorial Day, and we rightly paused in our lives to remember those who gave their lives for our country. The day before, however, was a different kind of Memorial Day, as I preached on Jesus’ death on the cross, remembering how the eternal Son of God gave His life for the world. In last week’s Pulse article, I referenced Brennan Manning’s autobiography, All is Grace. This week, I wanted to share one of my favorite quotes of his, from his book The Signature of Jesus:...Keep Reading
One of the mysteries of the gospel of John is that one of the disciples is referred to as “the disciple Jesus loved.” According to church history, this disciple is none other than John himself, the author of the book. Consider what you would be like if you saw that as your primary identity, the way you viewed yourself. Not a mother or father. Not a husband or wife. Not a teacher or carpenter. Not an athlete or an artist. Not a good person or a screw-up. Not even a Christian, or one who loves God. I am the one that Jesus loves....Keep Reading
I am a very fearful person. I often feel as if anxiety is my predominant emotion, as I walk through my life avoiding conflict and difficult situations that, for some unknown reason, I fear will be the death of me. Never mind, of course, that typically when I have to face one of those situations, I find myself surviving unscathed, and even grateful that I went through it instead of working so hard to avoid it. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that I struggle with fear and anxiety on a daily basis. In the apostle John’s first letter, he has many beautifully profound things to say about love, both the love we have received from God and the love we are to display towards one another. My favorite line...Keep Reading
The doctrine of election, which states that in some mysterious way that we will never quite understand this side of eternity, God chose us before the beginning of the world to know and serve Him, is a doctrine that causes some people a great deal of discomfort. After all, if God chose some, does that mean that He did not choose others, so that their lack of faith is not truly their own decision? As I am not God, I don’t fully understand this mystery either, although the Bible seems to clearly state that we are all responsible for our own choices, so that no one will be able to blame God for his or her lack of faith. Rather, the doctrine of election is meant to encourage us that God loves us, that He has a purpose for our lives, and that He will never let us go. It is also meant to stir up in us humility and wonder at His undeserved love and grace for us. As Charles Spurgeon put it:...Keep Reading
In the 1960’s the Beatles came out with a song entitled, “All you need is Love”. Now I wasn’t alive during that time, but I believe they were truly onto something there with their message! John Lennon said in a later interview (before he died), that with that song they were trying to send a message to the world and I think it’s a message that we still need to hear today! All you need is love! Now I could get super spiritual here and point to the fact that God is love and therefore the actual message is that all you really need is Him, which I absolutely believe to be true, but I think there’s more to it than just that. I think when we really understand the love of God….the love He has for the world and for us as individuals….it changes everything! When the love of Christ infiltrates your heart, you can’t help but see the world differently, to see yourself differently, and to see others differently!...Keep Reading
This past week, I spent 48 hours up at my seminary, Gordon-Conwell, participating in something called the Timothy Project. Basically, it was an opportunity to gather with eight other recent Gordon-Conwell grads, along with three professors, in order to talk about how the first years in ministry have been and to gain some wisdom from each other. One of the most meaningful moments of the trip for me was stopping in a small chapel on campus where my wife, Michele, and I had prayed in 2002 about possibly moving up to Massachusetts so that I could attend Gordon-Conwell....Keep Reading
One of the mysteries of the gospel of John is that one of the disciples is referred to as “the disciple Jesus loved.” According to church history, this disciple is none other than John himself, the author of the book. Consider what you would be like if that was your primary identity, the way you viewed yourself. Not a mother or father. Not a husband or wife. Not a teacher or carpenter. Not an athlete or an artist. Not a good person or a screw-up. Not even a Christian, or one who loves God. I am the one that Jesus loves....Keep Reading
The doctrine of election, which states that in some mysterious way that we will never quite understand this side of eternity, God chose us before the beginning of the world to know and serve Him, is a doctrine that causes some people a great deal of discomfort. After all, if God chose some, does that mean that He did not choose others, so that their lack of faith is not truly their own decision? As I am not God, I don‘™t fully understand this mystery either, although the Bible seems to clearly state that we are all responsible for our own choices, so that no one will be able to blame God for his or her lack of faith. Rather, the doctrine of election is meant to encourage us that God loves us, that He has a purpose for our lives, and that He will never let us go. It is also meant to stir up in us humility and wonder at His undeserved love and grace for us. As Charles Spurgeon put it: ‘œI believe the doctrine of election, because I am quite certain that, if God had not chosen me, I should never have chosen Him; and I am sure He chose me before I was born, or else He never would have chosen me afterwards; and He must have elected me for reasons unknown to me, for I never could find any reason in myself why He should have looked upon me with special love.‘...Keep Reading
This summer, we will be holding a Community Group based on the book Creature of the Word by Matt Chandler. The following is an excerpt from Chandler‘™s book ‘œThe Explicit Gospel‘ in honor of Father‘™s Day this coming Sunday: There is this really magical thing that happens in homes all over the world. When you first have a child, you want your child to crawl. And then you want your kid to walk. My first child, Audrey, pulled herself to the coffee table. When she got to the coffee table, she began to bounce on her knees, and then she began to coast along. From there she started letting go and just being wobbly. At that point, we began to get really, really excited about the fact that Audrey is about to walk. Eventually she took her hands off of the coffee table, and we watched physics in motion....Keep Reading
Soon after the Holocaust, an East German pastor by the name of Guenter Rutenborn wrote a play called The Sign of Jonah, in his attempt to make sense of all the horror had transpired in his country. In his play, he had a group of German people trying to come to terms with the atrocities that had been committed on their soil, asking questions of who was to blame for the Holocaust. Some blamed Hitler. Others blamed the munitions manufacturers. Still more blamed the German people in their apathy. Finally, the people realized that above all the others, that God was to blame. After all, God had created this world. God had placed all of this power in such unworthy hands. And God had for some unknown reason allowed all of these tragedies to happen. As the group of people come to this conclusion, God‘™s punishment is considered, and this sentence is pronounced:...Keep Reading
I grew up going to church; however, God did not truly become real until I was 18, right at the beginning of college, as the result of attending a youth group the summer after my high school graduation. As a new Christian, I was full of young enthusiasm for God, for the Bible, and for Christian fellowship, but also very unsure of who God was and what it meant to know and follow Him. I want to share with you a story about one of the first ways God ever answered that question in my life....Keep Reading