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
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 Lord, you are more costly than gold Lord, you are more beautiful than diamonds And nothing I desire compares with you...Keep Reading
Worry. It’s a word that brings to mind skipped meals, knotted stomachs, cold sweats and sleepless nights. Worry is a heavy burden to carry. For something that causes our minds and bodies to endure so much distress, why do we do so much of it? No worry, no headaches. Easy, right? So will all those who don’t worry please step forward. We want to hear about your success in letting everything go. Umm! Not one? Max Lucado was right when he penned, “Do you worry? I worry about you if you don’t’ worry! All of us worry, but we shouldn’t. Jesus commands us a half a dozen times, ‘Do not worry’.” ...Keep Reading
The following Christmas story is a bit long, but well worth it. It took place in the Central African Republic, in one of the languages where I trained national translators from 2008-2011. Last Christmas, Mrs. Logne was worrying about what to do at the Bible college wives’ Christmas celebration. Everyone had to do something in their own language, but here she was, almost at the last minute, and she had nothing to share in her native language, Nzakara. ...Keep Reading
If you have ever been a part of a recovery group like AA, NA, or Celebrate Recovery, you know that these groups often succeed in creating the kind of atmosphere and community that the church is meant to display. One of the ways the church can go wrong, especially with young people, is by preaching the “gospel of sin management” (Dr. Kara Powell’s book “The sticky faith guide for your family” explains this well). This kind of teaching and witness leads young people to see the Christian faith as a collection of do’s and don’t’s: to be a Christian means that you go to church, don’t swear, don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t sleep around, etc. One of the main problems with this understanding is that when the young person inevitably breaks those rules, their response is often “I can’t go back to church, because I would just be judged and condemned.”...Keep Reading
Our culture has become obsessed over the past few years with the concept of privilege: white privilege, male privilege, Christian privilege, and so on. The idea makes some sense: in any culture, there are benefits and advantages that come with belonging to a specific (usually the majority) social group. But the concept is also used to argue that those on the other side are the oppressed, and that everyone should work to try to make the system more equitable. I’ve been reflecting lately on the concept of privilege in light of the Bible, and how Christianity turns the concept of privilege on its head....Keep Reading
In the spirit of Jesus’ words in Matthew 6, I want you to try an experiment this week: do something anonymously for another person. Give a gift, send a note, do an act of service, or find some other way of blessing another person. It could be a family member, a church member, a neighbor, or even a complete stranger. But here’s the catch: don’t tell anyone that you did it – not even your closest friend or family member....Keep Reading
Yesterday I had the privilege of leading the memorial service for Elizabeth Wong, mother of Alan Wong, mother-in-law of Evelyn, and grandmother of Tyler, Christian and Kaylee, who are all a part of our church. In moments like this, the two passages I am most often drawn to are Ecclesiastes 7:2, which reads “It is better to go to a house of mourning that to a house of feasting, for death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this to heart,” and the story of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus in John 11. The Ecclesiastes verse reminds us that as painful as it is to be at a funeral, it can have a profound perspective-altering effect if we will pay attention....Keep Reading
In some ways, the story recounted above is the simplest of all lessons: a lesson about the importance of saying thank you. Ten lepers received healing from Jesus, but only one came back to say thank you, and as a result, only that leper received the deeper healing (seeing as how Jesus had just healed him and his friends of leprosy, I’m assuming “your faith has made you well” refers to the forgiveness of sins, like the paralytic in Matthew 9:2). But even simple lessons can be much-needed reminders....Keep Reading
In September of 1997, I found myself in the Homer Babbidge Library at UConn, reading an article in Christianity Today on trends they were seeing in youth and young adult ministry. I was a senior at UConn, thinking about where I would end up when I graduated. It had been quite a journey at UConn. On the second day of college, I had committed my life to Jesus. Since then, I had gotten involved in a Christian fellowship group called InterVarsity, joined the staff of a parachurch ministry called Musicon, and served two summers as the Youth Program Director at South United Methodist Church in Manchester, making many wonderful friends along the way. As I entered my senior year, I knew that I wanted to keep following Jesus wherever He might lead....Keep Reading