National Day of Prayer
Today a city-wide team of over 100 energized intercessors gathered in downtown Rochester to commemorate the National Day of Prayer and hold up our community and its leaders in concerted prayer. The ceremonies, led by a coalition of local pastoral leaders guided by Bishop David Singleton, spiritual leader of Ark of Jesus Ministries, were opened by the sounding of shofars as the intercessors formed a prayer chain that nearly encircled the County Office Building. It is clear that a prayer momentum is beginning to build for unity in the Body of Christ and revival in Rochester. There is talk of...
Read MoreStreams in the desert
Often we encounter tears, sometimes for understandable reasons when something sad happens but sometimes unexpectedly when a particularly happy event takes place. Over the years I’ve come to recognize tears as part of God’s way of refreshing our hearts and making room for healing and restoration. Of course, bitter tears can be shed, a kind of fist-shaking in God’s face – “Why did You let this happen to me” – as if we would be a better judge of how things should happen. This kind only diminishes a person and closes them off. However, tears that are...
Read MoreA Legacy of Love
What could be more amazing than arriving at the tomb and finding it empty, meeting an angel, discovering that the person you thought was dead is really alive and loves you more than you can even imagine? Easter fills us with hope that grows stronger and stronger with each year, each season. Sometimes it seems like winter will never pass and that spring will never come, but then there it is! Warmth and love and life and flowers! It’s far, far deeper and broader and eternally more significant than Easter eggs and baskets and bonnets… it’s the very life of the Risen Savior in...
Read MoreEaster Egg Hunt!
Today’s Easter Egg Hunt was one of the best ever! We had wonderful weather, sunny all day and in the mid-50s, and a great turnout. Kids and their parents and older siblings began arriving to line up half an hour in advance, little children first. Big-hearted neighbors, under the lead of Rora Rice, had gathered hundreds of plastic eggs and stuffed them with wholesome candies, collected a couple dozen Easter baskets for the occasion, and then made and put up signs weeks in advance. The crew arrived at noon and “hid” over 500 eggs (in plain sight) throughout the Arnett Garden...
Read MoreWho Was Jesus?
As we meditate on the events of Good Friday, we often wonder Who was this man? Coming from a Western cultural background, our mind fills with images from our childhood of what Jesus might have looked like and how He behaved, often forgetting that He was of humble Middle Eastern background, a young Hebrew man deeply steeped by His own choosing in the teachings, traditions, and worldview of his heritage. What we call the “Last Supper” was really a Passover Seder in which the bread of life was the Aphikoman and the cup was a cup of Redemption and Acceptance at the culmination of the...
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