I bought my ticket for the Camino this week. If you don’t know, I am going on a pilgrimage this summer. The Camino de Santiago has been calling me to it for 7-8 years now. So this summer, I will fly to Barcelona, Spain, and take a train to the starting point of this 500…
Author: Tina Schramme
Word of the Year
My word for this year is “curiosity.” I’ve never chosen a word for the year before, and I really didn’t have plans to pick a word this year. But this word, “curious” or some form of it, kept coming up over and over again. And yesterday, as it popped into my head once more, I…
Questions
Here’s what’s on my mind these days. How do we reach the people outside our church walls with the good news of Christ? This has always been a question for the church, of course, but the current landscape is very different, especially since COVID-19. We were headed in a particular direction as an American culture;…
Ridiculous Generosity
I was recently reading the “parable of the tenants” found in Luke 20:9-19 (also Mark 12 & Mathew 21). As Jesus tells the story, a man planted a vineyard, and leased it to several farmer tenants. When the harvest came, the owner sought to receive some of the produce, so he sent a servant to…
Humility as a Path to Growth
A prerequisite of learning is humility. Read that again. We cannot learn what we think we already know. We must acknowledge the limitations of our understanding, if we truly want to learn anything new. In some areas, most of us can easily admit our limitations. For example, when it comes to building anything, I know…
2nd Grade Bibles
This weekend we handed out bibles to all of our current 2nd graders. If you were not here this weekend, please ask any of our children’s team and we will get your 2nd grader a bible. As a church, we are in a partnership with you, the parents, to help them fall in love with…
Easter Eggs
We are not hosting an Egg Hunt this year. I know many churches probably don’t do Egg Hunts because it is too “secular.” They believe Easter is about the Risen Christ, not plastic eggs and candy. I respect their convictions. For us though, we think you can hold both hand in hand. Yes, the Resurrection is…
When your child gets a new Bible…
We hand out bibles to 2nd graders every year in May. Our church values children and this is one of the ways we celebrate significant milestones in their lives. However, we know that if we want them to develop a love for God’s word, it has to be in partnership with the families. So for our part, parents can count on…
Marriage – guest post
Enjoy this guest post from my friend Jeff Green. He wrote these lovely words in celebration of 25 years of marriage to Tricia Green. They struck a chord in me. I think they will do the same for you. In light of our 25th anniversary, Trish and I thought a lot about how to celebrate…
Just Talk About It
The Search Institute published research findings from a study called Effective Christian Education: A National Study of Protestant Congregations. These findings tell us what factors were involved in producing adults who now profess a mature faith. Here’s what they found: Certain personal experiences have a measurable positive impact on the maturity of faith of the…