Today's Features

 It has been over 100 years since the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, its walls and the temple. When the Persians defeat the Babylonians King Cyrus sets all the deported people free. Nehemiah is in Susa, the capital of Persia during the reign of Artxerxes, serving as the king’s cupbearer. Nehemiah hears a bad report of what is going on in Jerusalem, and fasts and prays. The king sees Nehemiah’s sadness and asks how he can help.

Covenant UMC is offering people the chance to participate in an event with faith-based financial guru Dave Ramsey at 8 p.m. today (Thursday). Thousands of venues across the country will host Town Hall for Hope, broadcasting Ramsey’s live presentation. In the opening half hour, Ramsey will offer straight talk about the economy, recession, foreclosures and more. He’ll carefully explain where we’ve come from, where we are now, and what we should be doing with our money at this time.

The drama of Holy Week, Good Friday and Easter is a love story. It is the story of God’s love. I think the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) is the love story Jesus told during his life to help prepare the disciples to understand how his death could be used by God to redeem the world.  The prodigal son is you and me. He tells his loving father (God) that he can’t wait for him to die.

It was Aug. 1, 1997, and I had just begun a juice fast to seek guidance from God about whether it was time to move to a new church, and what kind of church God may want me to serve. What began as a three-day fast turned into the most spiritually intense 17 days of my life. God spoke to me in ways I had never experienced before, and through this He gave me a new vision for doing ministry, a leading to serve a new church development in La Grange and a beautiful daughter we adopted from China. Those are just the high points of those 17 days.