Words Matter

  Words Matter
Every parent must decide for themselves how they want to raise their child.   Words of encouragement as they watch their baby take their first steps.  Words of tenderness as they tend to a skinned knee. Words of frustration and anger that bring tears to a child.
 
Words matter
A good coach inspires their players to keep going and not give up.  Green Bay Packers coach, Vince Lombardi, was well known for his locker room pep talks, along with his discipline, and faith in God.  The poor coach yells, blames and berates.   Whose team do you want to be on?
 
Words matter
Which would you rather have, a boss who belittles and mocks employees?  Or  a boss who uplifts and gives constructive words of encouragement when working on a difficult assignment?
 
Words matter
Winston Churchill’s speech that stirred a nation as he addressed the House of Commons. June 18, 1940, “….Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, ‘This was their finest hour.’”
 
John F. Kennedy,  “My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.”
 
Martin Luther King Jr., “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
 
Words matter

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Cornerstone- Growth or Wither?

Recently I had the opportunity to travel to to Europe on business. During the weekend several collegues and I travelled to the countryside and visited beautiful cathedrals built centuries ago. The workmanship was incredible, carvings in stone, stained glass that filled the sanctuary, but as beautiful as these buildings were, I was saddened by the emptiness. Tourists now exceeded the number of parishioners; gone was the spiritual growth and what remained was only a building that was slowly withering.    
 
Europe like America is straying away from our christian beliefs; too many people are making excuses for not going to church, not engaging in christian fellowship or attending a Bible study class. Sadly, the leadership in churches often has not helped matters. Throughout the centuries, church misconduct, greed and politics within the heirarchy of the church resulted in people equating the wrong doings of man as a justification for turning away from God.  
 
Yes, we are the church, we are people with a lot of ills and needs; but those of use who believe know that there is a God, so great, so full of love that through Him, all things are possible.
 
When we come together to truely worship the Lord, through prayer, song, and serve others; we begin to understand that it isn’t about a fancy building, or a charamastic religiously leader, that matters. No, it is about a relationship with our Lord; a time of sharing our inner thoughts with Him, and through Him we desire to serve, and love others. As a tangible result even the the simplest one room building is transformed into a house of God more beautiful than any cathedral made by man. A house whose growth is measured by the love it gives is build on a solid foundation.