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More Amy Below are some of the weekly columns "Messages from Amy" that have appeared in the church newsletter. The table includes the first paragraph. You can read the entire column by clicking in the column Read The Full Column. Time or Topic | Opening paragraph from "Message from Amy" | Read Full Column | July 2007 | We are already starting to see it. We look around the congregation on a Sunday morning, and a familiar face is missing from his or her regular spot. The next week, he or she shows up again, but two or three others are absent. The next week, they are back, but another is gone. | X | April 2007 | There are a number of ways to respectfully get the attention of a noisy crowd. Civic leaders bang a gavel. A dinner host taps a spoon on a glass. A business leader clears his or her throat. | X | June 2007 | We’ve been doing some spring cleaning lately, but not the house where we live. We take care of a rental house, and before the new renters moved in, we had to clean it top to bottom. At first, it didn’t look that dirty. But once I got up close and personal with a bucket and sponge, dirt and grime become much more apparent. | X | Easter 2007 | Easter netted our household about as much candy as Halloween did six months ago. And now that Lent is over, I can gladly do my part to help empty the candy dish of the malted milk eggs the Easter Bunny left behind. | X | Spring 2007 | The kids were the ones to make the discovery. A week ago Monday, they went into the basement before school and returned upstairs with the exciting news that it was flooded. | X | | In her book, Unbinding the Gospel, Gay Reese emphasizes the importance of prayer for everything we do as church. According to Reese, regardless of a church’s particulars (size, strengths, weaknesses, ambitions, theology, denomination, etc.) those that truly reach people (inside and outside the congregation) who do not know the love of God start with prayer. Churches that bathe everything in prayer grow in their mission work, in their spiritual depth, in their numbers. | X |
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