You’ve heard from Pastors Ellis and Gunnar about our adventure at General Assembly this year. A tornado touched down half mile from the church, forcing us to seek shelter. It was very exciting! When I shared this news with my daredevil daughter, Rachel, she replied, “Just my luck; the year I skip General Assembly, you […]
Read More… from You’re Going the Wrong Way l Luke 13:1-9 l Chapel Hill Church Gig Harbor
The other night after a meeting of our elders, I was walking to my car and I noticed two of our elders, Serena and Stephanie, walking out ahead of me. The light was waning, they were by themselves…heads down…. in deep conversation. And they were approaching my car. I couldn’t help myself. As they stepped […]
Read More… from Division and Decision l Luke 12:49-59 l Chapel Hill Church Gig Harbor
Last week your pastors attended our annual denominational in Denver, and, at one point we took the action of appointing a permanent committee on disaster relief. A group of people who would be permanently tasked with responding to the natural disasters in this world, making sure that our denomination is responding quickly and effectively to […]
Read More… from Are You Ready? l Luke 12:35-48 l Chapel Hill Church Gig Harbor
Good morning, Chapel Hill! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Gunnar, and I’m one of the pastors here. It’s good to be with you this Sunday. And it’s actually great to be back home after some travel. This last week, all of our pastors and some of our elders attended […]
Read More… from Overcoming Toxic Spiritual Leadership l Luke 12:1-12 l Chapel Hill Church Gig Harbor
Back when I was a freshman in high school, I had a youth leader/Chapel Hill elder who mentioned that they knew how to make homemade fireworks. Which I of course found very intriguing. So, I did some supply scavenging that involved a 2L plastic bottle and crystal Drano (not the full recipe) and persuaded said […]
Read More… from Prodigal Son l Luke 15:11-32 l Chapel Hill Church Gig Harbor
The other day I invited a friend to breakfast. He’d done something generous for us, saved us a lot of money in the process, and I wanted to thank him. So, we showed up at the appointed hour, ordered our breakfast…and began to tuck in. And just then, I got a call from Cyndi. “Uh…you […]
Read More… from If I Only Had a Heart l Luke 11:37-54 l Chapel Hill Church Gig Harbor
Three weeks ago, the latest installment in the Legend of Zelda video game series was launched: Tears of the Kingdom. In 3 days, it sold 10 million copies, making it the fastest selling Nintendo game of all time. We’ve been playing it constantly in our house and it has been the source of much conversation […]
Read More… from Give Me a Sign l Luke 11:27-36 l Chapel Hill Church Gig Harbor
Last week Pastor Ellis preached a great message on the Lord’s Prayer in Luke 11. He pointed out the differences between Luke’s version and Matthew’s, which is the one that most Christians pray. Surely Jesus taught on prayer more than once which might explain the slight differences between the two. But there is one difference […]
Read More… from The Strong Man l Luke 11:14-26 l Chapel Hill Church Gig Harbor
This weekend my daughter completed her first musical theater performance. She was one of the Oompa-Loompas in Peninsula High School’s production of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The show was excellent and I know there were many other Chapel Hill students involved, so congratulations to all of you. The production is based upon the […]
Read More… from Teach Us to Pray l Luke 11:1-13 l Chapel Hill Church Gig Harbor
Happy Mother’s Day! Two weeks ago, I took the mother of our children to visit our daughter Rachel in North Carolina…and together we shared a brand-new adventure: the drag races. How many of you have been to a drag race? This was a National Hot Rod Association regional held at zMAX Dragway in Charlotte, N.C., […]