In this category, you will find many inspirational stories to be used for your Church Bulletins, Church Newsletters and/or Inspirational E-mails.
One of the more difficult things for someone on a weekly basis is to prepare content for the church bulletin or newsletter.
Usually, it’s a tug-of-war trying to get information from department or ministry leaders concerning the events taking place soon. Plus, the attempt to get an article from the Pastor can be an adventure due to the busy-ness of their schedule.
We want to do our part by adding a new category called “Church Bulletin Articles”. These will be brief and inspirational and may be used within the context of the church communications to the congregation via e-mail, bulletin or newsletter.
Perhaps some of them would even work as Sermon Illustrations! Stop back often as we plan to build the selection in the weeks and months ahead.
In reality, all our letters can be easily modified for that purpose. So, some of the content will be similar to our letters, while most of it will be new stories.
The joy of Christmas has always seemed to be summed up beautifully in the carol, “Joy to the World.” We sing, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come.” and we think of the baby lying in the manger, our precious Savior. But most of us don't know that this was not written to be a Christmas carol at all. Isaac Watts penned these lyrics to reflect the second part of Psalm 98. He prefaced the song with the words, “The Messiah's Coming and Kingdom.” The song also refers to the creation – fields, floods, rocks, hills, plains repeating the sounding joy when Christ comes again.
Turkey Day? Really? It was made a national holiday by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Was it supposed to be a day to celebrate food? Actually what Lincoln said in his Thanksgiving Proclamation was that the country should “…set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” This is quite different from some modern school textbooks which state that any thanks was given to the Indians.
Back in 1988, a Polish railway worker named Jan Grzebski was hit by a train. He lived … but only barely. For the next 19 years (until the year 2007), Grzebski was in a coma.
He awoke in 2007 to a whole new world. Nineteen years earlier, Poland was a communist state. Grzebski noted that back then meat was rationed and there were huge lines at nearly every gas station. And, “there was only tea and vinegar in the shops.”
If we ever decided to CANCEL imperfect people from the Bible, we would be left with only one person… Jesus Christ.
God left the imperfect ones in the Word so that the contrast between perfection and imperfection would be crystal clear.
Also, we can learn lessons of failure and success from people who have tried, failed, got back up, and tried again—David, Peter, Thomas, Moses, Samson, etc.
Heroes aren't perfect. In today's society, the media is constantly digging up the skeletons in the closet of those we admire most, but this does not make them any less of a hero. Look at the book of Judges filled with twelve heroes who freed Israel from its oppressors.