Serve by Design

During our recent Texas vacation to visit family, we took a day trip northwest of Austin to Marble Falls. This attractive little community of 6,000 is situated on the Colorado River and attracts visitors and prospective residents seeking the slower pace of hill country living. The shelf of limestone cutting diagonally across the town's lake has a brownish exterior on its upper layer that could easily be mistaken for marble. Back in the days before the damming of the river, this waterway created a natural waterfall giving the town its distinctive name, Marble Falls. After passing through the downtown area with its restaurants, shops and art galleries, we drove up to Lakeside Park where we stopped, got out of our car and walked around to take it all in. Standing just above the beach of Lake Marble Falls, we looked out at a modern bridge spanning the bluffs in the distance. While standing there, Marc, our son who is a graphic design artist at his core, loves to capture moments using...

During this past Christmas season our church participated in an Advent study resourced by Adam Hamilton, senior pastor of Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. Hamilton told a vivid story in his book,  Incarnation about how Resurrection sets up the annual Christmas Eve candlelight service. They turn down all the lights in the worship center and sit in absolute darkness for what seems like an uncomfortable amount of time. They are trying to demonstrate that "we cannot appreciate the light that Christ brings until we linger in the darkness for a moment" (p.121). "Crave the Light!" Image credit: depositphotos.com Hamilton further describes the drama that builds in these moments of anticipation, "We sit there in the darkness... babies crying, children antsy, we sit there craving the light... then one candle enters the room" as a reader shares this scripture, "In the beginning was the Word... In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. T...