Church member Kim Bodholdt was the Game On! guest during worship October 8th. Kim is the director of school climate transformation at Fort Dodge Middle School. Her job is to create a positive learning experience daily for the 1200+ students and staff at FDMS. The practices that have...
On Sunday, the 17th, we began our study of the Old Testament book of Nehemiah. This book describes the incredible events that transpired in the middle of the 5th century, BC. Nehemiah was a man living in the capital of the Persian Empire, the city of Susa. This city is in modern-day Iran, about...
Ridgewood Lanes, Dollar Tree and Fort Dodge Middle School are some of the interesting places I’ve been doing ministry outside the walls of First Presbyterian this last year. These three places I frequent on the average once a week. I bowl on Monday nights, buy supplies on Tuesdays...
On August 6th I had the opportunity to preach at my home church, Westminster Presbyterian Church, in West Chester, PA. They are celebrating their 125th year of ministry. I am one of the 14 children of the church who have gone on to become an ordained minister. This is the only church of which...
I have two close friends from seminary who are pastors in Virginia. One grew up in California while the other grew up in North Carolina. The three of us have a continual text message conversation. This morning after finishing a meeting, I had 176 unread text messages… In recent days, the...
I want to start by saying that Iowa Central Community College was the door to my life in the USA. I can’t express how grateful I am for the opportunity that I was given to be able to come here to study music. Wonderful people with great hearts such as, Kathleen Schreier, Patty Croonquist...
Our session recently made a motion to halt all non-essential expenditures within the church for the next 60 days. This decision was not made lightly. Session spent considerable time discussing our current financial position and drew from recommendations from our Property and Finance Ministry...
A friend of mine used to wear a t-shirt which had these words written on the front: “Fall Down 7 Times…Stand Up 8!” She wore it during especially difficult times as she battled her alcoholism as a reminder to herself to get back up and move forward. But it applies to all of us...
Lesson Number Four: God Is Like Our Compost Bins... When I dreamt about the garden, I knew I wanted to include a composting bin. At first, I thought we’d build our own wooden compost bins. But I realized that open compost beds would produce a stench that no one wanted around the church...
Lesson Number Three: Doing Things With Consistency On May 17th the confirmation students and I planted the last of our seeds in the ground. They joined the pumpkin and tomato plants that were already in the beds. The confirmands added spinach, lettuce, carrots, beans, peas, cucumbers and...
