Do you remember the first time you felt able to truly be yourself in church: questions, pain and rough edges included? For me that place was my first experience of Alpha 20 years ago. It’s the first place it felt okay to share my spiritual doubts, my theological questions and my real-life, real-time hurt. In […]
High-powered drinking
(THIS SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, ONE SERVICE only, 10:00 am!) I had a German Shepherd named Caleb and he was hilarious. When I sprayed a stream of water from the garden hose, he hated it! He attacked it, snapped at it, and would leap in the air to “catch it.” Then, he’d walk toward me, trying […]
Good work
A couple of weeks ago, I hired “Dean” to replace the leaking gutters on our home. I assumed he would show up with a team of people to do the job. After all, they roll the gutters in place, seamlessly, a custom-fit for the job. He would need help handling the 60-foot plus length of […]
Will we whine or will we pray?
There are lots of things you learn as a parent of a toddler. The latest lesson at our house: whining. My mom used to quote the verse, “do all things without grumbling or complaining” all the time to us kids. Now I know why! But upon further reflection, I am ashamed to admit, my daughter […]
What’s upcoming for Chapel Hill?
When I was about eight years old, I started to realize I couldn’t see the whiteboard at school. The letters were getting blurry, and instead of copying what the teacher wrote, I would copy from the person sitting next to me. A year later, my dad got reading glasses, and when he brought them home, […]
Join the journey of service
Last Tuesday at the State of the Church Town Hall, about 230 attendees celebrated some of the incredible ways that the Lord has been at work at Chapel Hill in the last year. I say “some of” because it is a pleasant challenge to try and name all the ways we see God at work […]
Right where God wants us
Since Jesus isn’t here in person, but we are, the church isn’t our building. The church is the people with his Spirit…and the Spirit blows where it wants! (John 3:8) That makes my job coordinating our Beyond These Walls gifts very exciting. This time of year, we celebrate people like Curtis who stepped into a […]
Looking back, looking ahead, and free pie!
Every once in a while, we have a town hall meeting here at Chapel Hill. This is a chance for us to gather as a church family and talk together about important things. Tuesday, August 8, at 6:00 pm, we’ll have our next gathering of this sort: a State of the Church Dessert. It will begin […]
Reflecting on a “Stellar” Vacation Bible School
Chapel Hill Church has a great tradition each summer to gather children and elementary kids for five days in what we now call Summer Blast VBS (formerly known as Day Camp). This past week, from 9:00 am to noon, we had about 130 volunteers serving together to shine the light of Jesus’ love to 160 […]
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Celebrating a fresh start
You know how some memories are seared into your brain? The first time I went to Celebrate Recovery is one of those moments for me. I remember walking into the Memorial Chapel on a Wednesday night, hearing people declaring freedom from addiction and past hurts, and I felt a little like Moses in Exodus 3 […]