Our Blog Words of Encouragement & Useful Resources

As I write this, I sense that the “tone of the times” seems focused on the brokenness around us.  Whether the discussion is political, economic, social, or personal, the tendency is to zoom in on the uncertainty and challenges ahead.   In such dark times, the...

Those who have been part of the East Central Region for a while know our mission as a combined family of churches: “To partner with the Church in Ohio and West Virginia to represent the Gospel of Jesus Christ to every man, woman and child.”  I’ve often highlighted the...

As I write this, the November elections loom just over the horizon. In past years, I’ve been approached by Christians asking, “should I vote?” and “for whom?” I’ve counseled that since God gives us the privilege of living in a nation in which our vote can influence...

I’m not sure most of us as Christians live as aware as we should be of the Biblical teaching that Jesus-followers are to consider themselves “dead.” The scriptural evidence is clear: I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me....

We have once again celebrated July 4th, marking the 248th year since our founding fathers announced the Declaration of Independence. Flags have flown, fireworks have been displayed, and fresh performances of “God Bless America” have been shared. It begs a critical...

We disciples of Jesus are in a continual process of transformation. We are called to a life of becoming more and more like Jesus and less and less like ourselves as we pursue a growing relationship with God, with other Christians, and with those who have yet to make a...

I can’t say it loudly enough—“It’s about relationships!” We as Christians must remind ourselves again and again that the core of our lives as disciples of Jesus is not religious activity; the indispensable aspect is our relational connection with God and with others....

The miracle of the fallen walls of Jericho recorded in Joshua 5-6 is among the most familiar Old Testament stories. The Israelites marching around the walls, the trumpets and shouting, and the “against all odds” disintegration of an up-until-then impenetrable barrier...

I was deployed with the US Army just 2 weeks after the attacks of 9/11. Eventually, much of our unit found its way to Afghanistan where we were assigned several interpreters. I connected with an interpreter from Pakistan who happened to be Christian. We became very...

My childhood home area was the Appalachian foothills of northern Pennsylvania, a place aptly nicknamed “the endless mountains” of PA. It’s a landscape of wooded rolling hills capped with untold millions of trees, making for bright greens in spring, deeper emeralds in...

I want to let you in on some wrestling I have been doing with God lately. It involves two unassailable Biblical facts about Jesus. First, Jesus never compromised, soft-pedaled, or underplayed truth. Jesus never sinned in any way (Hebrews 4:15, 2 Corinthians 5:21)....

Many of us have watched a television series that ends an episode with a “cliffhanger.” That’s the strategy that leaves an important plot element hanging in the balance without resolution, leading us to say, “wait, what is going to happen?” The need to know how things...

The “Christmas story” is one of the Bible’s most well-known accounts. For Christians and non-Christians alike, the “baby born in a manger” is a familiar event, as the season’s many nativity displays attest. The challenge, though, is that our familiarity may mask how...

We Christians enter the Thanksgiving season with an opportunity to “choose to give thanks.” Many Americans are driven by their feelings—after all, one of the most common excuses for stepping away from most anything is, “I don’t feel like it!”. People abandon marriage...

Any time I have the opportunity to take a commercial airline flight, I am freshly amazed at the view from 30,000 feet. While the details of what is on the ground don’t change physically, seeing them from cruising altitude provides a totally different perspective....