A little over three years ago Erika and I were praying about whether we should leave the church where we had served for 17 years and take a position at Friendship Church. We spent hours and hours praying and talking as we made the decision. At that same time, our son was starting to look…
Author: Pastor Matt Clausen
The ONLY Hope
All our Easter celebrations are going to look different this year. There will be no community wide Easter egg hunts. People will not gather for church on Easter morning with hundreds of other worshipers while being dressed in their Easter finest. Churches that bring in live animals on Easter will need to leave them in…
Significance of Christmas
Every year as December approaches the call goes out among Christians to remember the “real reason for Christmas.” As television specials about Rudolph, Frosty and The Grinch are joined with songs about rocking around the Christmas tree and grandma getting run over by reindeer, it is easy to feel like Jesus’ birth gets lost in…
History of Thanksgiving
It is easy to pass right over Thanksgiving today. Christmas music is already on the radio and the stores have had their Christmas displays out since October. If we do think about Thanksgiving our thoughts are usually consumed with details for family gatherings, turkeys, green bean casseroles and football. But Thanksgiving was originally designed as…
Baptism
I have a book in my library called The Waters That Divide. It isn’t a book about the Red Sea but rather about the waters of baptism and how churches have understood baptism differently over the centuries. Some churches have tied their practice of baptism to church tradition while others have been swayed by what…