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.
In a small town in the midwest where I spent six years of my early youth, there lived a mentally retarded adult named Myron. It was during Depression years and there was no place for Myron to be “kept” but at home. He lived there with his mother and they survived on the work that Myron did as a gardener.
He had a proverbial “green thumb,” and the places where he did the gardening were easy to identify. The lawns, shrubs, hedges, flowers–all showed care, skill, and loving attention. Myron also did “volunteer” work. He cut grass, raked leaves, and planted flowers in what would otherwise have been unsightly vacant lots. He was probably best known for his “oil can.” He always carried a small can of lubricating oil in his hip pocket. A squeaky door or hinge or gate always got a “free” dose from Myron's oil can.
There was a family in the San Francisco Bay area that grew up with that kind of commitment. The son's name was David Kraft. His father was a pastor, a godly pastor in the South Bay. David Kraft grew up with a father who constantly remembered God's faithfulness in the past so that David might trust in God in all of his tomorrows. David grew up in love with Jesus, and he felt the call of God into the pastoral ministry. He went to Denver Conservative Baptist Seminary.
I took my two youngest kids to the Batavia quarry on my day off a week ago. It has a beautiful sand beach with shallow water. Or you can go out into the deep water and there are some high dives and slides. But if you want to go in the deep water, you've got to get a deep-water pass.
At the beginning of the year, my 7-year-old son, Andrew, got his deep-water pass, but it was not something he did easily. He's a great swimmer; he just doesn't like the pressure of having to do something in front of a couple of lifeguards.
“I was walking through an orchard when I saw a low tree laden more heavily with fruit than the rest. On a nearer examination, it appeared that the tree had been dragged to the very earth, and broken by the weight of its treasures. ‘Oh!' said I, gazing on the tree, ‘here lies one who has been ruined by his riches.'
“Then I met a man hobbling along on two wooden legs, leaning on two sticks. ‘Tell me,' said I, ‘my poor fellow, how you came to lose your legs.'
On May 24, 1965, a thirteen-and-a-half-foot boat quietly slipped out of the marina at Falmouth, Massachusetts. Its destination? England. It would be the smallest craft ever to make the voyage. Its name? Tinkerbelle. Its pilot? Robert Manry, a copy editor for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, who felt ten years at the desk was enough boredom for a while, so he took a leave of absence to fulfill his secret dream.
Manry was afraid, not of the ocean, but of all those people who would try to talk him out of the trip. So he didn't share it with many, just some relatives and especially his wife, Virginia. She was his greatest source of support.
