Author: njumcadmin

Scripture:  Jeremiah 18:1-11 Over the past couple of years, a lot of people have found themselves with a bit more time on their hands for obvious reasons.  One of the things that a decent number of people did with that time is they invested it into writing.  In late 2020 through 2021 publishing houses saw … [Read more…]

A few years ago David Kinnaman led a research project and wrote a book to answer an important question.   He sought to discover what people outside of churches think about churches.    Sadly, his findings were not as positive as we would like.  Kinnaman found that people outside the church do not actually know what churches … [Read more…]

Scripture:  Hebrews 13:1-8; 15-16 Dwayne Johnson has become one of the most reliable box office draws in recent years.  He has found success in a wide variety of movies and he is just as likely to be brawling on a moving semi in a Fast and the Furious sequel as he is belting out a … [Read more…]

Scripture:  Hebrews 12:18-29 One of the things that I like about human nature, is that we tackle a big challenge because we can.  If a person find something that has not been done before, and they think they have a chance to pull it off then they will put energy, time, and resources to make … [Read more…]

Scripture:  Luke 12:49-56 In 2003 I started my journey into ministry when I was hired for a very part-time youth ministry position at Old Capitol UMC in Corydon, IN.  Within that first year, I preached for the first time on a youth Sunday.  Since then, I have preached somewhere close to 600 times.  In addition … [Read more…]

Scripture:  Jonah 1:17-2:10 I like to read and I end up reading several books a year.   This will probably not come as a surprise, but my favorite genre is science fiction.  So when I was a senior in high school and I had to take elective classes since I had already met most of the … [Read more…]

Scripture:  Daniel 6:1-23 In 2013 Civil rights activist and world leader Nelson Mandela passed away.  This event was international news and covered in every news media, but the report caused confusion for a lot of people because they thought he was already dead.  Multiple people reported confusion at the news because they distinctly remembered news … [Read more…]

I remember sitting in a history class in college.  It was the day a major term paper was due.  Like the vast majority of the class, I had been up very late into the previous night finishing the paper.  As the professor gathered up the papers, he said with a smirk, “You know there will … [Read more…]

Scripture:  Judges 6:1-20 This year was my eleventh consecutive year to volunteer as a church camp director.   For the past several years I have served at Camp Indicoso in Southern Indiana, but for the first four I was part of a team at Camp Adventure on the Lake Webster backwaters.  One of the water features … [Read more…]

Scripture:  Genesis 7:11-24; 8:13-21 When Johnny Carson retired from his legendary run on the Tonight Show it set off the Late Night Wars as his successor Jay Leno and his protégé David Letterman were soon competing on rival networks.  Personally, of the two I was always more of a Letterman fan, but Leno did have … [Read more…]