In a sermon a couple of weeks ago, Pastor Mark challenged us to think about what it would take for us as a congregation to see that the next generation of kids and teenagers would become authentic followers of Jesus by the time they graduated from high school. I believe we all can agree that […]
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What are your hopes and plans for 2023? For me, I’ve been dreaming about gardening, growth, and gratitude! As we head into the new year, I’d like to be more intentional with my planting (color-schemed beds this year!), my faith (increasing my unwavering confidence in God’s sovereignty) and my attitude (staying focused on the good). […]
Only Matthew tells the story of the magi—the “three kings”—who journeyed to worship baby Jesus. Of course, we don’t know if there were three (we assume so because of the three gifts). And they weren’t really “kings” (but they were apparently wealthy, judging by the swag they offered to the Holy Family.) They were “magi”— astrologers […]
If you are familiar with the Five Love Languages, you know that one of them is “gift-giving.” My mom has that gift. She LOVES to think about and shop for the people in her life. I don’t have that gift. I DON’T like to think about gifts and shop for them. The fact that Amazon […]
We started December out with a lot of hope, expectation, and anticipation. There was a lot to look forward to in the Hawkins’ household in December! We had planned a trip to Texas for our niece’s Quinceañara—the first time we’d seen our Texas family since pre-2020. We had Christmas concerts and holiday showcases on the […]
Over the last few weeks, at the encouragement of many, many of you, we have tried to share more candidly about our current financial situation. As with so many of our families, your Chapel Hill Church family has faced some economic challenges this year. So we took some positive steps. We shared with you our […]
We grandparents can be insufferable, I know. Just give us an opening…just push the door open a crack…and we will dash through it with stories of how brilliant, how beautiful, how extraordinary our grandchildren are…replete with a terabyte worth of cell phone photos and videos to make our case. I might be the worst, I […]
We have a firm “No-Christmas-before-Thanksgiving” rule in the Hawkins home. For those of you who are reading this with the twinkling lights of a well-established Christmas tree in the background, that’s fine. I get it. I don’t have anything against early decoration. But we are a turkey-before-tree, yams-before-yule, and carols-after-cranberry family. Part of that is […]
The other day I was driving home, pondering… if I am honest…worrying some… about several challenges facing our church. As I drove along in a funk, a song came on the radio. I’d never heard it before…but it captivated me like no song has in a long time. The song was called “I’m So […]
Twelve years ago, I shared with our elders what I believed to be the three priorities for our coming decade. Not that we didn’t have other things to attend to, but these three would be our particular focus. I called them the “3 Ds”: denomination, debt, and discipleship. First, denomination. We were increasingly aware that […]