I live in the sunny Bay of Plenty in New Zealand, where I attend
a small church with a focus on Jesus, the Bible, community outreach, and I play horn in the local brass band.
After we turned right at
a small church with a big graveyard, signs of habitation disappeared entirely except for a big white house up ahead on the right.
The rally — eagerly promoted by Mr. Grimm's team with a little more than a week to go before Election Day — filled
the small church with several dozen die - hards, who nibbled on soft - baked chocolate chip cookies and frosted mini-doughnuts as politician after politician did their best to impersonate the fire - and - brimstone preachers of old.
It's
a small church with about 60 of us in attendance.
Continuing our Living Churches series, Patrick Forbes visits
a small church with a big heart and «Chas and Dave» style worship location.
I now go, when I can, to a very
small church with less than 20 people.
It's totally possible for
a small church with limited resources to produce an excellent worship experience in multiple locations.
In that case, perhaps
small churches with part - time pastors should be embraced for their special gifts and the contributions they make to the vitality of the denomination.
Small churches with part - time pastors should be embraced for their special gifts and the contributions they make to the vitality of the denomination.
Not exact matches
First responders quickly converged on the
church in Sutherland Springs, a
small town east of San Antonio
with a population under 1,000.
«I am a
small - business owner, and I am in daily contact
with everyone in the neighborhood, and I employ you and your kids and your friends, and I support the local organizations and the
churches and the synagogues, the police departments and the fire departments,» Sutz says.
There, he practiced sermonizing in a swamp, preaching to birds and alligators before tryouts
with small churches.
Some
small insurers in the Berkshire stable, operating
with names like Cypress Insurance Co., Redwood Fire and Casualty Insurance Co., or Continental Divide Insurance Co., insure ambulance drivers and tow - truck fleets,
churches and sororities, hole - in - one contests and paper airplane tosses.
In like manner, if I could not continue to unite
with any
smaller society,
church, or body of Christians, without committing sin, without lying and hypocrisy, without preaching to other doctrines which I did not myself believe, I should be under an absolute necessity of separating from that society.
Church spelled
with small c and opinion used to describe the
Church's magisterial teaching.
You have the ability to help someone get their
small business running, assist a local business
with marketing, bring your organization or leadership skills to your
church's next conference or children's event and even use your accounting skills to help your
church balance its budget.
I went to a
small town in the midwest to work for a non-profit thinking it'd be like chicken - soup - for the soul... INSTEAD it was a fundamentalist nightmare... it was NOT just
small town mindedness... I could hardly find a
church with out people wondering — why is this attractive woman in her early 30's unwed (or at least divorced
with 3 kids) people were cold and unfathomable judgmental and sometimes downright hostile eager to quote scriptures seemingly un-lead by the Holy Spirit.
I can see how you may view my attendance at a
small group Bible study affiliated
with a
church organization as a contradiction in terms (or at least an issue of semantics.)
Whether you're sitting in a
small group, at
church, laughing
with friends on Friday night, odds are you or a friend are suffering emotional pain, even if they appear happy, sociable and capable.
The late 1980s merger of the old American Lutheran
Church (ALC), Lutheran
Church in America (LCA), and Association of Evangelical Lutheran
Churches (AELC, a much
smaller body that broke earlier
with the Lutheran
Church» Missouri Synod) resulted in an organization of 5.3 million members that has been producing red ink, membership losses, and general demoralization since its start.
Yet the
small church remains, and as long as it does, it is our psychological link
with the past, showing us Sunday by Sunday that we are not adrift.
Our love of the past conflicts often
with your plans for the future; our love of order does not show up on abstract statistics; our tendency to look to each other for affection and support stands against a minister's wish to obtain emotional support away from the
small church.
The
church attendance drop does appear to be genuine, but
small, when you compare rates at same age, but the prayer difference seems to be just an age issue: «Although Millennials report praying less often than their elders do today, the GSS shows that Millennials are in sync
with Generation X and Baby Boomers when members of those generations were younger.»
Another factor is that the
church was very
small with an ageing congregation, which doesn't help in that situation either.
However, some of the
smaller institutions affiliated
with the
church may be in position to bring about change, and theological seminaries are among the most important of them.
Because even though the phrase «going to
church» kind of bugs me (we don't go, we are), and even though it's messy and imperfect, even though I've let them down and they have let me down, even though there are disappointments, even though I don't agree with everybody and they probably think I'm crazy sometimes, too, even though I don't think we need an official sanctioned Sunday morning thing to be part of the Body of Christ, because even though I think the Church crosses a lot of our self - made boundaries and preferences and gatekeepers, I keep choosing this small family out of hope an
church» kind of bugs me (we don't go, we are), and even though it's messy and imperfect, even though I've let them down and they have let me down, even though there are disappointments, even though I don't agree
with everybody and they probably think I'm crazy sometimes, too, even though I don't think we need an official sanctioned Sunday morning thing to be part of the Body of Christ, because even though I think the
Church crosses a lot of our self - made boundaries and preferences and gatekeepers, I keep choosing this small family out of hope an
Church crosses a lot of our self - made boundaries and preferences and gatekeepers, I keep choosing this
small family out of hope and joy.
When it does happen — when a group comes up
with a novel interpretation that defies the
church's historical and present teaching, it usually ends up becoming a
small sect at best and heretical at worst.
The demands a
small church places on its membership are high indeed, and may seem at first glance to have little to do
with Christian love and discipline.
Even while awaiting trial in two
small county jails in Texas, authorities said Jeffs was able to effectively remain in charge of the polygamous Fundamentalist
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints by using jail telephones to communicate
with followers.
By contrast, when I attended a gathering of pastors from much
smaller churches, nickel - and - dime operations
with meager attendance on Sundays, barely able to support their pastors, I did not hear the pastors talk about improving their facilities or putting together a smoother operation for Jesus.
Apart from occasional local congregations, the most promising place to begin is
with small educational institutions closely tied to the
church.
I began to attend a
small Episcopal
church in San Antonio on my lunch breaks, for Eucharist, and fell head over heels in love
with it, right down to the smell of waxed wood and candles.
A total of $ 125,000 was donated by a few members of the
church to be given to members after seeing the results of a similar experiment
with young pupils who used much
smaller amounts of money.
Finally, all agreed that the best forms of ecumenism, for the foreseeable future at least, should be local and ad hoc, involving such
small but powerful gestures as learning to pray
with and for local Catholic and Orthodox
churches.
God started
with a
small party in a garden, moved on toward some pow - wows at alters in the desert, then moved into a moveable tabernacle (kind of like an Old Testament RV), then reigned in a temple (especially the God - cave of the Holy of Holies, then disappeared while giving the Jews the silent treatment for some 400 years, then came back to the temple, then traveled the highways and byways
with anyone who wanted to join the fun and whooped it up
with society's outcasts and wedding attenders, then moved on to some public forums, then into some clandestine home groups and a few jail cells, and eventually made his way into traditional
church as we now know it.
Sunday morning, a weeknight for
small group, regular service on a ministry team, occasional
church projects and retreats... Add the expectation to be friends and find community
with other
church members beyond the organized settings, and I have little time left for my neighbors.
On the modern road to Jericho, which runs around the bottom of the Mount of Olives, is the Roman Catholic
church,
with a
small, reverently tended garden beside it containing some old, gnarled olive trees.
Maybe to say «that is a good question but I cant give you a satisfactory answer» maybe put the ball back into his / her court by offerring an invitation to the Alpha course or to come along to a
small Bible study group st your home or an invitation to a non
Church tyoe activity
with other Christians, walk, bike ride, five a side football or other sporting things, befriend them and truly love them without an agenda.
With this aim he devoted the sabbatical leave he describes in chapter 1 to the close study of two Protestant
churches in a
small Georgia town.
370 is not a large number for a European conference,
with over 50 from Oasis
Church itself, but the group is perhaps like the Toronto church itself - in being small but bringing large blessings to many other chu
Church itself, but the group is perhaps like the Toronto
church itself - in being small but bringing large blessings to many other chu
church itself - in being
small but bringing large blessings to many other
churches.
Their new home, in the Catholic
Church, was a
small 1960's concrete dual use hall / chapel
with a tiny altar (on wheels), a pool table stored in the confessional and a defunct freezer in the sacristy used for laying out the vestments.
The birth of PIH can be traced back to spring 1994 when Rick Oldland, minister at Oasis Baptist
Church (not connected
with Steve Chalke), heard about notable goings on at a
small Vineyard
Church near Toronto Airport.
For Megas, sure, but most
churches are
small neighborhood
churches with modest budgets.
So when Kim shared a
small piece of her own story about leaving the institutionalized
church and connecting to a less traditional community of believers, I mixed the well - meaning, thoughtful critiques in the comment section
with some of the messages I've been getting from critics lately, and this is what I heard:
I just wonder if all of us (big
churches and
small churches alike) could be a little wiser
with our money.
Our
churches, whose steeples dot every cityscape and
small town in the land, are exempt from paying taxes, and unlike many people of other faiths, we don't have to worry about fighting
with our employers to take time off to celebrate our religious holidays as they are largely taken for granted.
Adams found that the result of such preaching was that his
small, multiracial
church was filled
with people
with special needs.
One young woman asked me this question
with tears streaming down her face, for she had been made to feel
small and worthless by
churches like these, and she lived in fear that thousands upon thousands of women were experiencing the same thing and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Jack is writing today about an issue that many pastors of
small churches must deal
with — bivocational ministry.
Their pastor, Buck Giebelhaus, is committed to MOSAIC being an integral part of Northpoint's culture, and, as a result, Northpoint now participates in World Orphans»
Church - to - Church Partnerships as covenant partners with Fountain of Life Church of Juja, Kenya (Fountain of Life has a small family - style orphan care home on the church prop
Church - to -
Church Partnerships as covenant partners with Fountain of Life Church of Juja, Kenya (Fountain of Life has a small family - style orphan care home on the church prop
Church Partnerships as covenant partners
with Fountain of Life
Church of Juja, Kenya (Fountain of Life has a small family - style orphan care home on the church prop
Church of Juja, Kenya (Fountain of Life has a
small family - style orphan care home on the
church prop
church property).