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…

In 1926, Opal was born in Marshall, Texas. She was the oldest of three children, who moved to Fort Worth, Texas, when Opal was ten. Two years later, a mob of 500 white rioters burned down her home, angry that the family for moving into a predominantly black neighborhood. Of the incident, Lee said: “The…

This week, I came across an article celebrating that for the first time ever, the New Testament had been fully translated into a language; for the first time ever, a people would be able to read the New Testament in their native language. In 2026. It was only in 1875 that Christian missionaries first encountered…

If you’ve driven by the church facility in the past couple weeks, you may have noticed I’m not being welcomed anymore — by which I mean the sign no longer says “Welcome Pastor Michael Strickland!” In truth, I had assumed someone was in charge of the sign and would change it, but it turned out…

One of those things that my siblings and I joke about quite often is that when we were growing up, we never had toys that made noise — mechanical or battery-powered. Or actually — the truth of the matter — we never had toys that made noise… and that still made noise after a month or two. Somehow, mysteriously, the…