Posts from May 2019

Posts from May 2019

How Long Has It Been?

Since our Singing with the Spirit workshop several weeks ago, I think many of us have focused more on the content of our hymns and the lessons they teach than we ever have before. One of my favorite songs is, regrettably, not in our book. And you might not even know it – I actually stumped Myron Bruce when I mentioned this one! It’s called, “How Long Has It Been?” by Mosie Lister. Consider the message it conveys: How long…
Tombstones with American Flags on Memorial Day at Arlington National Cemetery

How Do You Want to be Remembered?

No one is entirely sure how Memorial Day got started. It is so shrouded in mystery that it is a little scholarly specialty; Columbus State University in Georgia even has a dedicated Center for Memorial Day Research. But whatever its origins in this country, whether in the Civil War or earlier, the fundamental practice of Memorial Day – decorating the graves of soldiers – is an ancient one. Human beings, across civilizations, continents, and millennia of history, have sought to…
Mix of work tools

How Useful Are We?

Someone once said, “Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires, but according to our capacities.”  We can all see the truth in that statement when it comes to serving the Lord. When God told Jonah to go and preach in the city of Nineveh, Jonah did not care to go. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, hated enemies of Israel; he did not want those people to repent!  So he decided quite literally to travel in…
Businessmen shaking hands in a agreeement

Why I Attend Every Service

The following article is by Carroll Ellis and appeared in the Gospel Advocate January 1960. It’s still relevant today, and I commend it to your consideration. BP A man has just received a kind invitation. It was not an all-expense paid, deep sea fishing trip, neither was it free tickets to a basketball game. Rather, it was an urgent, pressing invitation to attend public worship. He was not annoyed, embarrassed, teased, but pleased, for he said: “I was glad when…

Why Sing?

Most of us are probably familiar with Martin Luther. When you hear the name, you probably think of him first and foremost as the spark that ignited the Protestant Reformation by nailing his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg. What you might not know about Luther is that, among all the changes he made, he was responsible for reintroducing congregational singing into worship. A Jesuit priest once complained he, “has murdered more souls with his songs than with…