Dear Members and Friends of IBCZ, The message last week had to do with the precious gift of time God gives us – 24 hours each day, or 1,440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds. It is God’s gift to us, and it is up to us to decide how we use
Continue readingDear Members and Friends of IBCZ, Before concluding the series “Seeking the Gift of Christmas,” (which we interrupted last week to describe our worship changes), let me simply remind you of what I wrote about last week. In order to ensure that everyone can attend at least twice a month,
Continue readingDear Members and Friends of IBCZ, During these weeks of Advent, we are considering the gifts God offers us through Jesus Christ, the Savior whose birth we are celebrating. Last week we considered the gift of forgiveness which comes freely to us through faith in Christ. Another wonderful gift we
Continue readingDear Members and Friends of IBCZ, Last week we saw the importance of seeking after Jesus during the Christmas season. The Magi and the shepherds found and worshiped the Christ Child because they went seeking after Him. Others chose not to, and thus they missed Him. As Jesus said in
Continue readingDear 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
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