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.
A little girl got home from Sunday school, where she had been taught the verse: Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to our Father who is in heaven. She asked her mother, when she repeated the verse, what it meant.
Her mom said, “Well, it means that when you are good and kind and thoughtful and obedient, you are letting Christ's light shine in your life before all who know you.”
Dr. S. I. McMillen illustrates in a chapter entitled “The High Cost of Getting Even,” from his book, None of These Diseases, how physical maladies including ulcers, high blood pressure, and strokes are connected to harboring resentment and hatred toward others. He says, “It might be written on many thousands of death certificates that the victim died of ‘grudgitis.'” Dr. McMillen describes how hating a person enslaves the one who hates:
Shortly after World War II came to a close, Europe began picking up the pieces. Much of the Old Country had been ravaged by war and was in ruins. Perhaps the saddest sight of all was that of little orphaned children starving in the streets of those war-torn cities.
Early one chilly morning an American soldier was making his way back to the barracks in London. As he turned the corner in his jeep, he spotted a little lad with his nose pressed to the window of a pastry shop. Inside the cook was kneading dough for a fresh batch of doughnuts. The hungry boy stared in silence, watching every move.
One of the most fascinating biographies I ever read was that of Irene Webster Smith by Russell Hitt. The title of the book is Sensei which means “teacher” in Japanese.
Irene Smith was a Quaker and a missionary to Japan for some fifty years. Sensei became her name to the Japanese. She first went to Japan about 1915 under the Japan Evangelistic Band from her native Ireland. Her first assignment was to serve in the Tokyo Rescue Home, which sought to save prostitutes from their entrapment in the government-licensed brothels.
Miss Jones, an elderly spinster, lived in a small Midwestern community. She had the distinction of being the oldest resident of the town. One day she died, and the editor of the local newspaper wanted to print a little caption commemorating Miss Jones's death.
However, the more he thought about it, the more he became aware that while Miss Jones had never done anything terribly wrong (she had never spent a night in jail or been drunk), yet she had never actually done anything noteworthy.