The St. Paul kitchen, where countless meals are made each year, now has a new stove. This is exciting news for those who make food for the Churches United meal site, bread crosses on Good Fridays, and muffins for preschool events, among others. The o…
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The dedicated volunteers who lead the St. Paul Library are reporting a very good year for 2018, with 452 checkouts – up from 293 in 2017. The number of children’s books and adult fiction books checked out in 2018 doubled over 2017. 2018 Total Bi…
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Do you remember the first time you walked into St. Paul? It’s so…big. The building, the crowds, the organ. Big. If you walk in by yourself and you don’t know anyone around you, it takes a lot of courage not to turn around and walk back out the door….
How did you end up as pastor? This is a question I get a lot. So I don’t take up too much of people’s time, I often tell an abridged version of the story. I talk about how there were different points in my life where different people planted the seed…
Have you ever heard a love song That set your spirit free Have you ever watched a sunrise And felt you could not breathe What if it’s Him What if it’s God speaking – Mandisa, “God Speaking” For as long as I can remember, God has spoken to me through…
My mother died during surgery when I was five years old, the middle child. My siblings were 3 and 8 years old. An aunt and an uncle mostly raised me. We shifted around a lot from one house to another. Life was not easy during those younger years, but…
I was stuck in a forest. As a career counseling professional, I was beside myself. After years in a job I loved and found fulfilling, everything seemed to change. The changes were gradual; I cannot pinpoint a particular time when things started going…
One day, Dan Dickens was listening to National Public Radio’s eTown podcast. Every week, the podcast features someone who is doing good in their community. This particular week, the story was about a woman who started collecting socks for the homeles…
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Most experiences in my life have been educational, exciting, and positive. For example, when I left home to attend college it was the first time I had been away from home to be on my own. Like walking through a wilderness, I was unsure what my experi…
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As mom waved good-bye to us in the doorway of her farmhouse last June, I looked longingly at her through the car window. Living alone on our family farm at age 88 was becoming more difficult for her, and it was becoming harder for me to leave with ea…
The prophet Isaiah foretold of the ministry of Jesus when he declared a voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill…
We were so overwhelmed with our transition to the Quad Cities 27 years ago that we decided to tell my husband’s parents that we wouldn’t be traveling to visit with them on Christmas. We felt we needed to spend our last Christmas in the only house our…