December 16, 2014 The weekly homework club at Maple Leaf has taken on a whole new look this month as we celebrate the Christmas season with them. On Saturday, Dec. 6th many of us participated in a two-part Christmas party inside the clubhouse. With decorations and Christmas tree in place we invited all the children from the community to join us for an afternoon of ...

April 16, 2015 I want you more than you want me. It's a line in my journal I wrote years ago when I realized one day the imbalance of a relationship in my life. Here I was wanting this person to love me so badly, and for whatever reason, choice or inability, they weren't. My longing for that relationship took center stage in my life for years... decades maybe. It was a c...

April 10, 2015 There are many tensions in the bible, where it seems like we are told different things that don't necessarily contradict each other, but do push against each other. For example, we're told that God is sovereign but humans have free will; we're told that God hates sin but lovingly runs after sinners; we're told that God accepts us as we are but refuses to le...

March 21, 2015 God likes using wines and vines in his miracles and parables. I thought of that a number of years ago when I read the following in an article: Great wines come from low-yielding vineyards planted in marginal climates on the poorest soils. Though hard on the vines, these tough conditions are good for the wine, because the vines that are stressed must w...

March 13, 2015 One of our Big 7 Prayers for 2015 is: 5. That God would give us love for those whose sins offend us.and also the boldness to have awkward conversations to help each other grow. Paul speaks to both parts of this prayer in Galatians 6. Galatians 6:1 Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that perso...

July 31, 2013 Today is Sunday, July 28th, 2013. We have been fully "operational" for 5 months now, and I got home from our service today and got the urge to want to start chronicling - on a weekly basis - the life of True Life Church. My hope is that others will join me in the chronicling (meaning - I hope others will write posts like this one because I won't feel like ...

May 28, 2015 This past Sunday we talked about the importance of Awe -- how there is a difference between believing in the truths about Jesus and having an awe over those glorious truths. Belief alone -- in the sens of an intellectual agreement -- does not lead to worship or life change or freedom. Awe does. That was the purpose of the sermon on Sunday as we looked at 3 S...

October 17, 2012 What is an idol? Essentially it is a God other than God himself. It is something that we consume ourselves with and base our life's meaning upon. If it is taken away, we will lose our sense of peace and joy. As Christians, we worship God himself, and as a result we can't have idols because it would mean that we aren't worshipping God. We can't worship ...

November 15, 2012 Growing up, my mom used to always say that God gave me good eye sight to make up for my poor sense of direction. Now, I'm not entirely sure that's the way God was thinking about things, but that thought has always stuck with me. When I'm lost (which is very common for me) and frustrated with my (lack of) sense of direction, I am actually more grateful ...

December 19, 2012 There are two things that I see everywhere I look - signs of Christmas, and the latest reports about the Newtown tragedy. In between holiday songs and commercials about sales at Best Buy, the news and radio have been non-stop with coverage on the Connecticut community -- from eyewitness accounts to interviews with psychologists and priests to politicia...