I’ve seen it many times on church signs: “What is missing from ch__ch? UR!” That’s a cute way of saying that everybody has a place in the church and when you’re absent, you are missed. But for the Apostle Paul, this wasn’t something trivial. It was a serious spiritual issue. He described the church as a human body and each member as…

This week our annual Stewardship Devotional guide and faith card for 2015 were mailed out (if you didn’t receive one, call or pick one up in the church office). The theme for this year is “Test and See That the Lord is Good,” which is a mash-up of Malachi 3:10, “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse… Test me in this and…

I just read an article in the New York Times that begins: “ONE of the most striking scientific discoveries about religion in recent years is that going to church weekly is good for you. Religious attendance boosts the immune system and decreases blood pressure. It may add as much as two to three years to your life.” My unscientific intuition is that…

When the Disciples of Christ movement rolled across the country in the early and mid-1800s, one of the central messages was that even though we are different from one another in many ways, we are all a part of Christ’s church. It was an idea that echoed Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians: “For just as the body is one and has many…