The birth or adoption of a baby is an exciting time in the life of a family. Churches often do a wonderful job helping parents welcome their new child into the world with baby showers and hospital visits. Yet the need for support and encouragement continues beyond the first week of life. Here are some ways that you can help new parents stay connected with their church family:

Characteristics of Emerging Adults

"Ships that pass in the night/ only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness," Longfellow wrote in his epic poem, Emma and Eginhard. He speaks of the minimal signals given to vessels on the ocean which pass each other in the blackness of night with "only a look and a voice/ then darkness again and a silence." The two boats going to different destinations proceed on their own singular missions, each with little regard for the well-being or final port of the other.

God has always liked community.

In the book of Genesis, God creates not just one human being as the “image of God,” but two: a community (Gen. 1:26-27, NIV). He then calls this couple to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28, ESV), enlarging their community. Through Abraham, God chooses a specific community (Gen. 17, NIV) to represent His ways, and through Moses, God leads this once captive people into the Promised Land (Exod.).

This community has its ups and downs, but God is persistent throughout.

Do trees really clap their hands?

The island of Trinidad is a former British colony just a stone's throw away from the coastline of South America. Along with its partner, Tobago, it is home to over a million inhabitants in one of the most culturally diverse populations anywhere, near evenly split between people of African and South Asian populations but also including collections of Chinese, Europeans, and Hispanics.

God is at work in our lives. But sometimes that is hard to believe, let alone understand. My husband and I found this to be true concerning our family.

"Our discouraged life turned into a life of hope," Rajkumar shared with the JESUS film team.

Rajkumar lives with his wife and three sons in a village in central India. Over 1.2 million people live in the district where their village is located. This is Rajkumar's story of finding lasting faith in Jesus Christ.

Many people like to joke that a pastor works only an hour a week. We all know that is not true. When a loved one is rushed to the hospital, whom do we call? We want our pastor to know, to pray, and to be by our sides. We also know that our pastor brings leadership to our congregation, spends time with us when we are in need, and prepares for those weekly sermons.

She had been made aware of a great need. She had responded to a plea. Church of the Nazarene leaders had made it known that missionaries would have to be brought home due to lack of funding. With the dramatic onset of the Great Depression in 1929, and the devastating economic effects in the ensuing months, Nazarenes from all over the world would have to answer the call of sacrificial giving to keep the missionaries in the harvest fields. One of those willing Nazarenes was living in a little village called Owens, West Virginia. She was my maternal grandmother, Christine Moore.

Q: What can you tell me about Nazarene pastors? I am especially interested in things like average tenure, experience, attrition, age, education, and whether we are adding enough new ministers to keep up with the opportunities God is giving us.

A: A recent study of the corps of pastors in the Church of the Nazarene (Canada and the U.S.) provides some answers to your question: