We are leaving/have left one church, because the leadership was not going in a direction we were interested in following. We would like to have left totally, but our youngest loves the people at the church, so he still goes there on Sunday night and Wednesday night. Because we went to Innovative Impact this weekend, I let him go to “his” church this morning.

When I went to pick him up, I grabbed the bulletin, bought cookies for missions, and said hello to people I actually miss there.

When I read the bulletin, I was appalled. It was all about how pop self-help books disguised as God books are on the shelves today, especially the most recent 30 days to change your life book. Guess which book I thought he was talking about? Guess which book he was talking about?

It is true that One Month to Live doesn’t say a lot about how the Spirit works in our lives. But it does say to focus our lives on God and let Jesus be the point. That is what the Spirit does, reminding us, teaching us, and pointing us to Jesus.

I was confirmed once again that I should not be there.

They also chose as an elder the man who said my son was feminine repeatedly in front of a class of boys. I know he thought it was a joke, but it wasn’t funny. It hurt my son and other boys in the class were affected and effected by it.

At my church this morning, on the other hand, we listened to Bill Strickland tell how one life began impacting hundreds, thousands, more by his life being changed in high school by a ceramics teacher. Now 500 kids every year go to Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild and 92% go on to college. He talked about how people are assets and they live up to our expectations.

It was an encouraging and inspiring story.

What a contrast.