ExtraChristy

Why Can't Everything Be Easy? Years before it was a video game controller, my wife wanted to use a balance board in her work as a physical therapist. Standing on a board supported only in the center would require the clients to practice and improve their balancing skills. She asked the hospital maintenance workers to make her one. When they asked for a drawing of what she wanted, she sketched a wide flat board with narrow thick board attached under it along the center. The workers objected to the design. They patiently explained to her that it would wobble when someone stood on it. It was all she could do to stop the woodworkers from adding supports on either end. They were very dubious when she told them it was designed to wobble and be tough to stand on.

from rosefirerising on Flickr

When I'm wondering why my life is wobbling, I remember the balance board that “needed” extra legs for stability. Instead of cursing the lack of supports, maybe I need to learn to balance better.

Boasting When Knocked Off Balance

…but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.- Romans 5:3b-5

The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

This work by J. Christy Ramsey is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Deed

Luke 15:1-10

God is looking for the lost. If you're lost, God is looking for you!

This message is available as a podcast recorded live at our worship service, so the sound quality is less than heavenly even if the content is. Click the podcast image to listen now or right click the image and choose "Save As" to save this message in mp3 file format on your computer for playing later.

by Puzzler4879 on Flicker (c) Some Rights Reserved

Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Deed

Photo by Michael Chritton/Akron Beacon Journal

Our Church sign was in the Akron Beacon Journal, the Youngstown Vindicator and Channel 5 news (via the Ohio News Network) on on September 9th.

Besides our own Church tweets on twitter, we also were tweeted by the Presbyterian Church

Links to the articles appeared from Columbus, Ohio to around the world in Singapore.

Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Deed

Do You Have a MacGuffin? The TV show, Burn Notice has a Bible everyone is trying to get for the last three episodes. This common dramatic theme is called using a MacGuffin. A MacGuffin is an object that everyone is trying to steal, buy, hold, or hide. What the object actually is or does is unimportant. It is the focus of the plots and pursuits of the characters in the story but is never used or changed by all the commotion concerning it. So no matter what version of the Bible on Burn Notice is on the inside, it has become the MacGuffin version. A Bible that is an object of much concern, a prop to stage a drama, but not read, studied or followed. (Some Sundays I'm tempted to take the large beautiful Bible off the communion table and read aloud from it.)

from tomatoproductions.com

People have their favorite version of the Bible. I like the Jerusalem Bible (original) for reading, The Message for meditation and the New Revised Standard Version for study. Many prefer the New International Version or the King James Version. The only one I reject is the MacGuffin version, one that is the object of fuss and feuds, instead of the Word of God written, witnessing to God's self-revelation through which the Holy Spirit speaks to bear witness to Jesus Christ and to give authoritative direction for the life of faith.

The Purpose of the Book

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. - John 20:30-31

The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

This work by J. Christy Ramsey is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Deed

Luke 14:25-33,
Philemon 1-21

Going after worthless things, brings no profit and makes us worthless.

Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Deed