October , 2018

Worship is powerful, but sometimes we need a catalyst to help us get into the right frame of heart and mind for worship, something to help us turn our thoughts toward God.

Worship Bulletins help us do just that. They beckon us to seek the Lord. They invite us to meditate on His Word. They remind us of the price God paid for us through Jesus.

I was the wife of a pastor for 17 years until he recently changed vocations. We then found ourselves as regular attendees at a new church. Even though we already knew some people at the church, it still took some time to find our way. The ironic thing is, we know church. We know how it functions, how people get connected, why church exists, and we even know some of the more esoteric language of church.

Welcoming these differing abilities and trying to connect with each student brought its challenges for me as a teacher. I tried right at the beginning of each year to find out what individual students liked and what they thought they were good at. It helped me to know the students better and to plan for learning.

As a child, storms terrified me. Memories of a tornado that killed nine, injured 125 and devastated a small community near my Minnesota hometown lingered into adulthood. Then more storms hit decades later, this time damaging the farm place where I grew up and partially peeling the roof from my childhood church.

I was already sheltered in the basement of our home seeking protection from the approaching tornado when the National Weather Service text alert blasted on my cell phone.