A New Blog

The intention of this blog is to give me a way to share things that I have written or produced for others to use if they wish.  You may wonder why it is called "Christ Bearer."  It is because my name, Christopher, means Christ bearer, and because my vocation, pastor, makes me a Christ bearer.  It seemed appropriate.

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Family Devotions

The very prospect of leading your family in devotions may give some of you a cold sweat.  For others, it may seem like an unbearable burden.  But teaching the faith at home needs to start with the faith being present in our home, not just passively, with a Bible on the bookshelf and a cross on the wall, but actively, on our minds, on our lips, and in our hearts. Family devotions are a way that you can place the faith on the minds, lips, and hearts of your family.  It doesn't have to be terribly complex.  You don't need to have gone to Seminary.  In fact, all you really need to be able to do is read, or possibly memorize. In our family, we place our daily devotional time in the midst of our bedtime routine.  For your family, it may work better around the kitchen table at breakfast or dinner time, or in the car when the daily dropping the kids at seven different sports takes place. You also don't need an overabundance of time - I think our family devoti...
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Teaching the Faith at Home

One of my favorite things to do is to teach the faith within my congregation.  I love to teach Bible study and Confirmation classes.  But the effectiveness of this teaching is almost always closely related to the extent to which it is not an aberration in the life of the learner.  That is to say, are they learning the faith outside of that one hour each week that they are in Bible study or Confirmation instruction. This is particularly true for children.  There are 168 hours each week.  If learning the faith is limited to 1-2 hours each week, with little exposure to the Word of God outside of those times, it should not surprise anyone if the Christian faith becomes increasingly marginalized in a child's life as they grow older. That means that learning the faith needs to take place in the home as well.   I realize that the near immediate response is, "How will I find time to do that?"  Or, "I'm not good at teaching."  Or, "Isn't that...
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Blame is the Name of the Game 4 of 4

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