Dear Members and Friends of IBCZ, In the message last Sunday, I referred to the chief priests and teachers of the law. After the Magi arrived in Jerusalem looking for the Christ Child, King Herod asked these religious leaders where the promised Messiah was to be born. They quoted the
Continue readingI’ve just finished making this year’s advent wreath as the time of advent is about to start and soon it’s again time to light the first candle. “I know nothing about the tradition of advent wreaths!” was the remark of a sister in Christ at our church, who is a
Continue readingDear Members and Friends of IBCZ, Last Sunday we considered the church as the Bride of Christ. As His Bride, our relationship with God is rooted in love – first, His love for us, and then in response, our love for God. Nothing renews, deepens, and energizes our faith like
Continue readingDear Members and Friends of IBCZ, For the past two weeks I have been sharing about community – the life we experience as a church family as we love one another, care for one another, forgive one another, bear with one another, and encourage one another. We have seen that
Continue readingDear Members and Friends of IBCZ, Last week I wrote about the importance of community within the church. The church is not to be a place where we come, sit through a worship service, and then leave. The church is the people who are drawn to God and to one
Continue readingDear Members and Friends of IBCZ, One of the common themes we’ve encountered in our sermon series on The Church has been community. Several whole sermons were devoted to this (“What Is the Church?” which highlighted the church as the people of God being called together; and “The Church: A
Continue readingThe email sent by the leadership of the after-school care center of our daughter informed my wife and I that they plan to ‘celebrate’ Halloween with various activities. The children would not just have one but multiple events to look forward to, incl. a little tour around the neighborhood for
Continue readingDear Members and Friends of IBCZ, Last Sunday we considered the statement from our Church Covenant that says: “we will seek to know more about God and about how to live as followers of Jesus Christ.” If we are to live authentically and effectively as followers of Jesus, from time
Continue readingDear Members and Friends of IBCZ, Last Sunday our theme was “Gifted to Serve.” We saw how everyone in the church is gifted by the Holy Spirit to make some kind of meaningful contribution to the life and ministry of the church. No one has all the gifts, but all
Continue readingDear Members and Friends of IBCZ, Last Sunday our topic was the ministry of mercy we, as the church, are called to undertake. We looked at numerous passages from Scripture that highlight our call to minister assistance to those in need, such as the poor, the orphans, the widows, the
Continue reading
