August 2012

Locating a Place Beyond Dread

How's this picture for serenity? The teacher is Miss Misch with her first grade class in front of Hawthorne Elementary near Quindaro Boulevard in Kansas City, Kansas. It was a warm day in 1948. This was back when girls wore dresses and boys wore suspenders. I am on the second row to your far right, living proof that's about as cute as I ever got. Miss Misch, ever grim and imposing, did not suffer fools patiently so nobody repeated the first grade.

Thinking Outside the Box

Our goal at Two Rivers, Alaska, Community Church of the Nazarene is to love our neighbors. The challenge comes in trying to do so in our spread out, rural community. We live in an area that is about 3 miles wide and 14 miles long with only one major road running through it. The nearest town is 25 miles away. No central gathering place exists. Diverse schedules are a barrier for creating times of group fellowship. So our church board came up with two unique solutions: 25:40 Sunday and the Sunday Grocery Store.

Transforming Our Culture

In Matthew 16:16-18, Peter declared a truth received through revelation. Jesus told him that the Church was going to be built in this fashion of declaring revelation. The word Jesus used for Church is ecclesia. This term was not a word Jesus mysteriously pulled down from heaven — it was a common Greek word in that culture. It refers to a group of people who were citizens of a government, called together in unity and sent out with authority to make decisions to advance their kingdom.