Jesus tells a story about a farmer who scatters seed, and most of it goes to waste. Some of it falls on a path and never sprouts, some of it falls among rocks and can’t grow, some of it grows among weeds and gets choked out. Only a little bit falls in good soil and bears fruit. (Mt. 13)
The strange piece is that Jesus then says that this happens on purpose....
This month we're launching small groups at Real Life Church. As the Pastor, I have a passion to see people enveloped in a loving community where they find deeper and better relationships than they've ever known. As an achiever, I like to set goals. So I prayed that we would be able to start at least 10 small groups at Real Life in 2017. I figured it would take a couple of rounds, leading into the fall, maybe reaching our goal by Christmas.
We have 15 groups starting this month.
Many years ago, when my daughter was about three years old, we made the long trek from Hawaii to visit family on the mainland. At the end of our trip, we woke up at 6 in the morning to fly home. It was a bit of a milestone because my daughter was finally grown enough to walk and pull her own little rolling backpack, which meant I no longer had to deal with an unwieldy stroller.
We were a little dismayed when we discovered...
A few months ago I saw a bizarre sight as I drove through the suburbs of a nearby town. A woman was walking down the sidewalk, wearing an oversized t-shirt with a hand-scrawled message across the back: "I made my boyfriend eat food with spit in it."
I surmised that either she had spit in her boyfriend's food on purpose, or for some reason or another, it was an accident. Either way, gauging from the outcome...
