I’ve heard Mark O. Wilson speak. It’s a great pastor in a medium sized town in northern Wisconsin and he has many very practical ideas. This article is in Wesleyan Life online. I highly recommend it.
http://www.wesleyanlifeonline.com/article?id=150&src=0
This morning as I was reading my devotional book, I found some great thoughts from E. Stanley Jones. Sometimes we belittle the small kindnesses that we do for others out of love. But just maybe they are more important that we think. “The love of God is the biggest thing in the universe, and when that love is incarnate in a deed, then the deed is big….We don’t try to love; we just let Love love. And as we do, …his perfect Love perfects our love and perfects us in the process.” (365 Days with E. Stanley Jones p. 351) With this perspective, we are less likely to hold back when it seems sacrificial or to unconsciously expect returns on our investments. We are privileged to a channel for God’s love and we are being enlarged in heart through loving, whether or not it is returned.
Next Sunday begins a new series of messages with the exciting theme, Love Can Build a Bridge. Marilyn Wilsch suggested it to me after hearing the song by that title sung by the Judds. After thinking and praying about it and looking at the kinds of messages needed for our winter calendar, I decided it was just the right series for this time between the New Year’s messages and the beginning of our Lenten emphasis in March. Shaun and Mystical Harrington, father—daughter duet, will be singing the theme song for us. One of our drama props folks is making a sturdy bridge to be the focus of the platform décor for the series.