It had rained overnight, yet again. As I sat on the porch, the morning light stretched beneath branches and dappled the ground. The sky grew more blue by the minute. Then the downpour started — large drops; heavy rain. It only lasted about 10 seconds, but even more remarkable than the short duration was its…

Where I grew up, there were not a lot of options. The only school was the public one designated by your address — private schools were fifteen or more miles away. While there was a foreign language requirement, the only languages offered were German and Spanish. There was no football team. The fire department was made…

Sometimes, timing is everything. As I drove back to the office from an ABC-Metro Chicago officers’ meeting this week, a song came on the radio that I have not heard in over 25 years. Hearing it now, I heard something quite different in it than in the 1990’s when the Canadian band Crash Test Dummies…

I have been out of sorts all week. Have you had weeks like that yourself? Every day I seemed to think it was the wrong day. Every task I attempted seemed harder than it should have been. It was harder than usual to stay focused. Things that were important kept falling through the cracks. I…

This may be a letter for the numbers people, but it is what is on my mind. It is also going to be a bit long…… so: be warned. This week, a study and some data was released regarding Gen Z adults (ages 18–28) and church involvement. Within this survey (conducted Aug 9 – Sept 26,…

I would not call myself a history buff per se, but I do like to know where I am in it. There seems to me to be value in understanding what has happened in history near the day that we happen to be living right now. On July 19, 1848, the first Women’s Rights Convention was…

It will likely be of little surprise to you that in the week after my shoulder surgery, I have been thinking a lot about limits. There are many things right now that I simply cannot do. I knew this would be the case, of course. And in many ways, I may have been better prepared…

Some of our church members have received fraudulent emails with a common gift card scam. Please be aware, and DO NOT purchase gift cards. Report the email to your email service as spam. No one from CBC will ever request that anyone purchase gift cards in this manner. No official church emails are sent from…

John Leland was born in the colonies — a native of Massachusetts. While raised a Congregationalist, he had conversion experience and was baptized by a Baptist minister at eighteen. In 1776 and at the age of 22, Leland and his wife Sallie Devine moved to Virginia where he began pastoring various Baptist congregations and working…

There were three times in the past week that I found myself in conversations with persons and I made reference to one of the questions I use and recommend often in discernment when the choice is unclear: “Which choice will help you sleep best at night?” This could be worded different ways to arrive at…