By Pastor Ellis WhiteSenior Pastor “Do they celebrate Thanksgiving in England?” is a question I get asked multiple times every year around this time. I usually respond with something like, “Yes, we’re thankful every day.” Joking aside, we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving in England (although, the pilgrims were English, so we kind of invented it) and […]
How to Pray in an Election
By Pastor Ellis WhiteSenior Pastor Last Monday, I sat down to read the news, and I felt the weight of what many of us are feeling—a sense that this election holds so much at stake. I came across a Wall Street Journal poll revealing that 87% of voters believe America will suffer permanent damage if […]
A 60-Year-Old Prayer Answered
By Pastor Ellis WhiteSenior Pastor This week I was looking through our archive when I found a vision flyer for the building of our original church building. As I read the words of that vision statement from our founding Pastor, the Reverend Paul Neel, I realized that over 60 years later the Lord had granted […]
Ice Cream Potato Surprise!?!
By Pastor Ellis WhiteSenior Pastor “You’ve got to try the ice cream potato!” That’s what we were told by someone who grew up in Boise, when asked what some must-see sights for a trip to Boise are. Ice cream potato!? That sounds disgusting, I thought. And it didn’t get any better when I googled it. […]
What’s Really Facing Today’s Teens – And How to Respond
By Pastor Ellis WhiteSenior Pastor This year, my eldest began Middle School. I recall the transition I made at her age from St Peter’s Catholic Primary School with only 200 students to the Royal Grammar School with 10 times as many students. It was overwhelming. But thankfully, I wasn’t also dealing with a daily bombardment […]
Read More… from What’s Really Facing Today’s Teens – And How to Respond
Loneliness is the New Smoking
By Pastor Ellis WhiteSenior Pastor Did you know that lacking social connection is as dangerous as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day? According to a study published in 2017 in American Psychology, the odds of premature mortality are just as affected by a lack of friendship, as they are by smoking a pack of […]
Fire!
By Pastor Ellis WhiteSenior Pastor “The fire alarm would have gone off on the Day of Pentecost, too!” was one of the many comments I heard after last Sunday. If you weren’t there, you probably heard about it, but just after I stepped up to preach, as I was beginning to read the scripture passage, […]
I Declared My Independence
On March 14 of this year, I declared my independence from the United Kingdom. Well… sort of. I took the Oath of Allegiance of the United States of America and became a U.S. citizen. It included the following words: “I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and […]
Did I wake up in a strange new world?
I love Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Not only because Carroll and I studied the same degree at the same school, but because I think Alice’s story is a parable for the world in which we now find ourselves. Over the past 50 years, perhaps even over the past 15 years, it feels like […]
Wise men still seek him
When I was aged about 7 or 8, I used to love performing magic tricks on my friends and family. I remember one birthday or Christmas receiving a magic set, with which I practiced, before setting up my own magic show in the living room to perform to my parents. Even today, when I get […]