Youth Mission Trip to Peru: June 13, 2019
Posted June 13, 2019 by Stephanie Donson in Family Ministry, Missions
When I was asked to write about my experience here in Peru, I didn't know what to write. What comes to mind first is my experience working with the kids at OSA and the time I've spent bonding with the other youth. I cannot emphasize enough how much I've enjoyed working with the kids at OSA. I have so much love for them and it truly breaks my heart that I have to say goodbye and leave them. It'…
Youth Mission Trip to Peru: June 12, 2019
Posted June 12, 2019 by Cameron Elliott in Family Ministry, Missions
When getting ready for the trip to Peru, I was nervous. I knew very little about what I was getting myself into. I was mainly worried about being able to interact with the kids. Then the first day came around and every worry went away. Interacting with the kids was a lot of fun; they all had great attitudes and never let the disadvantages bring them down.
Youth Mission Trip to Peru: June 11, 2019
Posted June 11, 2019 by Chase McKnight in Family Ministry, Missions
Before this trip, I was unsure of how well I would be able to connect with the kids in Collique. However, what I've realized since we've arrived is that children communicate in ways that reach far beyond the language they speak. On the first day of teaching, when we showed them the backpacks they would be decorating, the faces of the children were lit up with joy. They were so excited to take…
Youth Mission Trip to Peru: June 10, 2019
Posted June 10, 2019 by Gareth Holder in Family Ministry, Missions
It was my first day with the OSA kids. I don't remember a lot of specifics from my last trip three years ago but I remember the kids' enthusiasm. Being around children always puts a smile on my face. This year, their energy is infectious as ever, and it made me realize something I want to share.
Peru is very different from home—the food, the styles, the buildings. But humanity is…
Library Space Reimagined
Posted June 4, 2019 by Brad Jernberg in Discipleship
We want to make our church family aware of a change to the library space.
Over the past couple of years, we've had two things happening in parallel that have led us to reevaluate the way we use the library space. One is that usage of the library—both in number of items checked out and in number of people—has declined. The other is that several new discipleship needs have arisen: a new…
Seniors Thank Their Church Family
Posted May 23, 2019 by SMBC in Family Ministry
Enjoy these sweet reflections from this year's graduating seniors.
Holy Week 2019 Highlights
Posted April 23, 2019 by SMBC in Worship, Music, Family Ministry, Lent
We journeyed through the Wilderness together during Lent encountering God in various settings. While wilderness can look and feel different for each of us, we corporately submitted our hearts for cleansing, our spirits for repair, and our lives for formation.
Then with a fresh perspective, we entered Holy Week. Stirring music, motivational Bible study, meaningful worship, and glorious…
Holy Week Devotional: Easter Sunday, April 21
Posted April 21, 2019 by Steve Wells in Lent
On that first Easter morning, it was the women who were doing the work of the Gospel. Even when all was lost, somebody had to take care of the body, so they went. Can you imagine a more hopeless walk than that one to that cemetery on that morning? We might want to overhear their conversation, but I fear there were no words spoken. Only the weary walk to the guarded tomb. How would they ever…
Holy Week Devotional: Saturday, April 20
Posted April 20, 2019 by Dolores Rader in Lent
It is Saturday. The evening before, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus' body down from the cross and laid it in a tomb cut out of rock. The despair and anguish of those who believed must have created a palpable, near-suffocating heaviness. Hope was lost. All was lost. But now it is the Sabbath. We cannot work. No deliberate activity is allowed. We do not go about our regular lives…
Holy Week Devotional: Friday, April 19
Posted April 19, 2019 by Matt Walton in Lent
The prospect of death is perhaps the ultimate wilderness. Death tests our faith because it calls into question God's "Yes" to life. In considering Christ's death on Golgotha, our own life's end, or mourning the loss of a loved one, we face a trial of existential magnitude. Is there hope beyond the grave? Is there life beyond the ending of life? These thoughts put us in a wilderness of limited…
Holy Week Devotional: Thursday, April 18
Posted April 18, 2019 by Carey Cannon in Lent
When I think of Maundy Thursday, it is the image of the Last Supper that comes to mind. It is the moment when Christ sits and commemorates with his disciples the "festival of the Lord," the Passover. I think of what Christ sees as He looks around the table. He sees in the eyes of His closest friends love and adoration but also hatred and despair. He sees deep in their eyes the wilderness each…
Holy Week Devotional: Wednesday, April 17
Posted April 17, 2019 by Greg Funderburk in Lent
The despair of Judas is an event in Holy Week that often evades deeper scrutiny. His is a wilderness that often escapes our sympathy. Are there some barren wilderness places from which there is no return? Stephen Adly Guirgis is a playwright who in 2005 wrote a play called, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, which envisions Judas on trial for his soul following his betrayal of Jesus. The play…
Holy Week Devotional: Tuesday, April 16
Posted April 16, 2019 by Susan Moore in Lent
One year, when my children were young, Jonathan's preschool started at 9:00 and Rachel's Mother's Day Out at 9:30. Therefore we needed to burn off energy for 30 minutes, which was accomplished most days by playing in the gym attached to the school. One of Rachel's favorite games was to station me on one end of the gym while she started on the other side. After the mandatory "Ready, Set, Go,"…
Holy Week Devotional: Monday, April 15
Posted April 15, 2019 by Brad Jernberg in Lent
Mark's account of Jesus' anointing at Bethany pits the self-righteous piety of the chief priests and teachers against the selfless, sacrificial gift of the woman at Simon's home. The story begins with the chief priests and teachers planning the assassination of the Messiah. This is a crime with a complicated scheme that will have great consequences, but they are worried about what the people…
Holy Week Devotional: Palm Sunday, April 14
Posted April 14, 2019 by Steve Wells in Lent
It was the Sunday morning before the Passover and Pontius Pilate, the fifth prefect of the Roman Province of Judea, awoke early. He and his troops from the Italian regiment were twenty miles west of Jerusalem, having left the fortress at Caesarea Maritima—Caesar by the Sea—two days before. Pilate preferred the ocean and his real work was there. The port at Caesarea was strategic: grain from…
Lent Devotional: Friday, April 12
Posted April 12, 2019 by SMBC in Lent
In the last few years, I have experienced a wilderness, which at the time seemed unbearable. The darkness covered any glimmer of hope and the pain seemed to swallow me up. I have experienced the wilderness of addiction followed by the light of recovery, of loneliness followed by loving community, and of loss followed by abundance. However, this time of wandering carved a place in me I was sure…
Lent Devotional: Thursday, April 11
Posted April 11, 2019 by Alice Ketchand in Lent
The wilderness times in my life, whether triggered by outside challenges or not, were marked by a deep sense of inner emptiness or lack, a sense of something of God being deeper and beyond me. This sense has motivated my spiritual seeking throughout my life. Looking back, I realize that in times of emptiness and seeking I did what I could see to do, as best I understood it, and God was…
Lent Devotional: Wednesday, April 10
Posted April 10, 2019 by Trey Westerburg in Lent
Walking alone in the desert, thirsty and bone tired, you look on the horizon and see a refreshing pool of beautiful, crystal clear water. A wave of relief washes over you and you find the will to keep going, to get to this thing you desire. You keep walking and walking but never seem to get any closer to this oasis. And that's when you realize. This pool, this promise of relief, isn't real. It…
Lent Devotional: Tuesday, April 9
Posted April 9, 2019 by Jessica Horton in Lent
There's a certain gloom to a hospital, lingering like a brewing storm on a cloudy day. Rarely is somebody in a hospital because things are going as planned. As much as we wish that everything will end up A-OK, that isn't necessarily the case. This January, my family and I experienced this firsthand. My grandpa, Bob Peck, underwent surgery at Methodist Hospital. The surgery was simple enough,…
Lent Devotional: Monday, April 8
Posted April 8, 2019 by SMBC in Lent
Four summers ago I had reached a point in my battle with addiction that I needed to get help. I checked into wilderness therapy, a forty-day treatment program that required complete immersion into wilderness living. This could not have been further from my comfort zone. Growing up, my family never went camping. My outdoor skills and experience were exactly zero.
