thechurchblog

I’m not real big on New Year’s resolutions, but if it’s something you should be doing anyway, then I say “go for it!” As for me…I’m going to try to write a new article every Monday, Wednesday and Friday starting today. We’ll see how it goes. If you start to become a fan of thechurchblog and notice that I’ve been slacking, please feel free to shoot me. I mean, shoot me an email!

The Southwestern New Mexico Chapter of the American Red Cross honored Crossroads Church today by inducting us into the “Clara Barton Society.”

Earlier this month, the local Red Cross chapter in Las Cruces announced that they were going to close due to lack of funds. This would leave our community (and most of the Southern portion of our State) without a local Red Cross chapter for the first time in, well…, a long time. They expressed an immediate need to raise $10,000 which Crossroads Church was able to respond to and meet.
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I arrived at my email this morning with over 300 “bounced” messages which appear to have originated with random people emailing from our thechurchblog.com domain. Let me assure you that these emails are most certainly spoofs — no email has originated from our servers, nor are any of these addresses actual email accounts on our system.

If any of you have sought out and found thechurchblog as a result of receiving one of these bogus, spoofed spam messages, we apologize for the unauthorized use of our name. This action was conducted completely without our knowledge and consent. We are taking steps to see if the spoofed messages can be stopped.

Again, our apologies for any spam you may receive that looks like it is coming from us.

Sincerely,
Mr. Editor

I’ve found that this kind of work is full of “ups” and “downs” — and most of the time it is somewhere in the middle. A good friend of mine who is currently living overseas sent this story which clearly illustrates this (albeit from a slightly different cultural perspective). Enjoy! And be encouraged. . .and if you’d like to check out her blog, it can be found here.

There is a trickster character in my country’s folklore named Jhooha. It’s almost like if the guy in the “So a guy walked into a bar…” jokes had a name. There are tons of these jokes / stories. We have read and heard several of them, and the people here think they are hilarious. Sometimes, the humor doesn’t quite translate, but this one was pretty funny.
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I haven’t written in awhile – chalk it up to having too many other things to do, I guess. Things are still stirring in my head, however. There is a mission field among the Post-Christian, and I believe thechurchblog is still a great way to share ideas and strategies for communicating the glory of God and the truth of Jesus Christ to them.
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I’ve been talking an awful lot, now. If you’ve been following the blog, post your thoughts! Just email them to stories@thechurchblog.org.

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We’re looking for people to help write articles for thechurchblog. If you feel you have something to say about the “Emerging Church,” church planting, evangelism, missions, worship, God’s glory, etc. – send it in. Follow the link at the very top of the homepage to find out more.

Welcome!

It’s hard to write the first post of a new blog – but here we are nevertheless. . .

This site was set up to be a collection of thoughts, insights, visions, dreams, etc. – all about The Church, and especially as to how The Church can continue to be relevant to a rapidly changing world.

We’ll see how it does – it may take months or even years before we get any real exposure. But when that time comes, I need to give credit to Mesilla Park Community Church of Las Cruces, NM for the vision to expand our influence as a church, and to ThreeBit Communications for providing the hosting for the site (thanks, Bill!).

If you feel the urge to contribute with your thoughts and story ideas, go right ahead and register. We may need to iron out the kinks in the system in order to make the posting and commenting process work well. After all, I’m just this guy, you know?

To God be the glory, now and forevermore. Amen.