Pastor’s Blog

One of the fun parts of Nehemiah 9 is the plethora (don’t you love that word) of cross references. These guys (the Levites) had been having their quiet times all through the Old Testament – especially in the books of the Law and the Psalms, but also in Isaiah, Kings and Chronicles.

Because of the lengthy text, which I really wanted to read, we were unable to pursue even a fraction of the cross references. So I put together a list of selected references for each verse. These may not be the best, but they are representative, and most of them show where the thought or phrase may have come from.

Here is a PDF of the text and references.

Nehemiah 9 references

A couple of people asked if I could post the ‘analysis’ slides from the Nehemiah 8 sermon, so here they are, better late than never. The first part of the chapter showed several ways in which we can pursue God’s word. The second part showed several ways we can respond to God’s Word, which is health to our souls.

Some things just take a little longer. The General Board approved the purchase of a new water fountain for the Sunday School wing some time before Ike. But with one thing and another, we just now got it, and just today installed it.

We’re hoping that the new water fountain will greatly reduce the need for people to go over to the kitchen to get water and ice.

Mystery Visitor

Outreach is a magazine that Mike Bauer subscribed to while focusing on outreach at Trinity. It’s a pretty good magazine, but the Mystery Visitor feature is only one I read every time it crosses my desk.

In this column Outreach, working with GuestReflections.com, enlists an unbeliever to report on an unannounced visit to a local church. They ask the visitor questions like:

What was your first impression of the church?

What was it like inside?

Describe the service?

Was there opportunity to respond?

Did you connect with anyone at the church?

Would you visit again?

Here’s the clincher: Outreach could send a mystery visitor to Trinity (or to any church that subscribes to the magazine). So how would we do? More significantly, what can you and I do to make that first time visitor’s visit more compelling?

Here are three recent Mystery Visitor columns. You may not always value what these visitors valued, but there is a lot to learn from the point of view of an unbelieving visitor.