Celebration Services at The Village are some of the sweetest times for our church family. Together we both see and hear testimony of God’s saving work as men, women and children make a public profession of faith through baptism. And together we remember the sacrifice of Jesus by taking communion.
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A few years back I had a front-row seat to an explosive, scandalous, public moral failure in the church. My dear friend had been asked to attempt to head off the catastrophe through counseling the people involved. Despite her wise words, they ran headlong into disaster, leaving an absolute mess for themselves and others to try to clean up. My friend was exhausted and grieved. Wanting to ...
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Nehemiah was an empathic man. In Nehemiah 1:4, he writes, “As soon as I heard these words I sat down and wept and mourned for days, and I continued fasting and praying before the God of heaven.” He did not witness the disaster in Jerusalem, nor did he personally know those suffering there. Yet his heart broke for the trouble occurring among God’s people. He spent days fasting and praying, ...
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Are stoplights and speed limits simply suggestions? Good advice to drive carefully? Helpful reminders to those less qualified in handling the complexities of modern motor carriages? Why come to a complete cessation of forward momentum when a California stop will suffice? Are you really expected to wait if there is quite literally no one else around? Does stop really mean stop? Isn’t that a ...
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God-imaging humans are social creatures; “persons-in-relation” is the prescribed human condition. The triune God, in His wisdom, set up specific structural communities that act as scaffolding on which these relationships would hang. These structural communities are called institutions. Family, Church, and School are institutions that are close to the heart of most. Industry (enterprise) and ...
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Life in DFW can simultaneously be a blessing and a curse. We are blessed to raise our families in communities that are relatively safe. We are cursed because our neighborhoods sometime resemble insulated cocoons where we don’t visibly see enough of the world’s brokenness.
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Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father. There is no shadow of turning with Thee. Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not; as Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be. Great is Thy faithfulness, great is Thy faithfulness. Morning by morning new mercies I see. All I have needed Thy hand hath provided. Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me. I have always desired children. There isn’t ...
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Why is Life Sacred? What is it that sets humans apart from other animals? Is it the fact that we use tools or that we have big brains? Is it the fact that we are smart or work together? Genesis 1:27 gives us the answer: We are made in the image of God. We alone, out of all that God created, bear the image of God – the imago dei. What this means is that, though we are not God, we are more like ...
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