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.
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Stuart Briscoe writes…
I taught all my kids to enjoy running. Then they taught me how not to enjoy it. While I could keep a pace ahead of them, it was great. But when they began to haul me out of bed early in the morning on a frosty morning to run, or when my daughter had me running a 10,000-meter race, I started asking, “What in the world am I doing?”
A veteran missionary was returning home to the U.S. after several terms on the field. Aboard a ship bound for New York harbor, a secularist challenged him by pointing out the futility of giving one's life in missionary service. He continued by noting that no one on board ship was paying any attention to the veteran missionary, a sign they apparently considered his efforts quite wasted.
The servant of God responded, “I'm not home yet.”
Margaret Sangster Phippen wrote that in the mid 1950s her father, British minister W. E. Sangster, began to notice some uneasiness in his throat and a dragging in his leg. When he went to the doctor, he found that he had an incurable disease that caused progressive muscular atrophy. His muscles would gradually waste away, his voice would fail, his throat would soon become unable to swallow.
Sangster threw himself into his work in British home missions, figuring he could still write and he would have even more time for prayer. “Let me stay in the struggle Lord,” he pleaded. “I don't mind if I can no longer be a general, but give me just a regiment to lead.”
Bruce Thielemann writes…
This is a special anniversary for me. Seven years ago today, at this very hour, I was on the operating table in the Presbyterian Hospital, and they were cutting their way into my heart. That operation was a lot longer then than it is now, and it took quite a longer time to come out of the anesthesia because they gave you so much more of it.
I can remember the process of coming to consciousness. At first, I was aware of my existence only by my thoughts. That is, I had no sensory data on which to depend. I could not hear or see or smell or taste or touch. Yet I could think. Descartes says that's enough–“I think, therefore I am.” It seemed true to me at that moment.
I recently read a story by a woman who said that as a girl she was poor. She said, “I grew up in a cold water flat, but I married a man who had money. And he took me up to a place where I had flowers, and I had gardens, and I had grass. It was wonderful. And we had children.
“Then suddenly I became physically sick. I went to the hospital, and the doctors ran all sorts of tests. One night the doctor came into my room, and with a long look on his face, said, ‘I'm sorry to tell you this. Your liver has stopped working.'
“I said, ‘Doctor, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Are you telling me that I am dying?' And he said, ‘I, I can't tell you any more than that. Your liver has stopped working. We've done everything we can to start it.' And he walked out.