When you’re a young child, the world is full of wonder and

Nobody has to teach us to be selfish. It just comes naturally to us. No parent has ever sat their kid down & had that hard talk: “You’re being too thoughtful!” No one should be surprised when a child’s behavior is ‘Self-Centered’. But how does being ‘Self-Centered’ affect our sense of ‘Why Church is Important’?

For the past several years, our lives have been dictated by worry about being contagious. But not everything infectious is necessarily bad.  Such as things like a yawn, smiles, or even kindness.  The thing to consider is the thought of people asking, “Why do we need church?” if the church was contagious?

Every Christian church since the days of Jesus has practiced baptism in one form or another.  But how and why they baptize is frequently done differently.  Some baptize infants and others baptize adults. Some sprinkle, some pour & others dunk you like a donut!  But underlying this we cannot escape the question, “Why does the church think baptism is such a big deal?”

PLEASE NOTE: Please excuse the audio issues with Ed's microphone due to a loose connection.

We are all familiar with the typical wedding vows: "I choose you… To have and to hold from this day forward. For better or worse, for richer or poorer. In sickness or in health, I will forsake all others to love, honor and cherish you alone as long as we both shall live.” Such a wonderful thing to have the Bride and Groom making this sort of commitment. But why would God compare the church to a Bride?

If you were to make a list of items of what you would expect at church, what would be on that list?  Great worship, preaching, children’s ministries, a nice building with wonderful parking? People like me??  Now how would this list compare to God’s list?  Discipleship, loving one another, unity, care for widows and orphans?  We explore this in today’s message.

Things can lose their value to us over time.  Nothing makes that more apparent than getting ready for a Garage Sale!  It helps to re-evaluate whether or not something still has meaning to us.  Have we taken on the same mindset when it comes to church?  One thing is for sure that God thinks church is worth hanging on to.  But do we hold the same view?

We come up with all sorts of reasons for and against church. The style of the preaching, the worship, the people. But we need to get beyond the consumerism mentality of church and go deeper... we need to ask ourselves, "Why Do We Need the Church?"

Mother’s Day is not exactly the first thing that comes to mind when we hear the words, “Pick up your cross and follow Me.” But there is more connection there than we realize. These require that we accept the responsibility of our influence on others. Today we look at the story of Ruth and like so many mothers the impact of our example on others.

With Moses God uses an ordinary log to cause the bitter water to be sweet. Why not use Moses' staff? What about the people that God uses? We see it time and time again throughout scripture how God does extraordinary things with very ordinary people.