We’re excited to resume our weekly Discovery Bible Studies this Wednesday at 7:00 pm in the food court at the Price Chopper on 4th Street. These are low-threat environments – you don’t have to be a Biblical expert to feel like you can contribute.  The studies are discussions where everyone can participate and learn more about God and themselves.  If you have any questions or would just like more information on a Discovery Bible Study before you come out, we totally understand and would be happy to answer any questions you have.  Just drop us a note here on the website or send us an email at info@first city.life. 

How often do we think about being grateful?  Do we recognize reasons to be thankful as often and as passionately as we recognize reasons to be angry or feel slighted?  It’s an interesting question that probably leads to a sobering answer for a lot of us.

Think about it for a moment.  How many times do we give thanks for a meal, or gas in the car, or a person who helps us when we need it?  Or how about a situation where we really wanted something but didn’t get……and later realized we were lucky we didn’t get what we wanted?  When we sit down and think about it, we have a lot to be thankful for and a lot to show gratitude for.

When we focus on gratitude, we see the blessings and the gifts we have.  When we fall into a season of not appreciating what we have, we never see what we do have.  This affects our entire outlook, attitude, and approach to life.  It makes the difference between having joy and peace rather than having disappointment and sorrow.  This doesn’t mean we never have difficult times but a lack of gratitude can spiral us into a negative life that is hard to get out of. 

If you’d like to talk some more about gratitude and our outlook on what we do and don’t have, we’d love to sit down and talk with you about it.  Just message us here and we’ll set up a time and place to talk.  We hope to get a chance to see you soon!

We had another great morning with our prayer table at the Leavenworth City Market last Saturday.  Lots of great conversations, some really nice times of prayer, and 14 prayer requests made it a great day.  The final City Market of the year will be on Saturday, October 11th from 8:00 am to 12:00 pm.  Mark your calendars and come on out – we hope to see you and get a chance to talk with you and pray for you!   

Is there something you’d like prayer for, but you aren’t sure how to ask?  Don’t worry about how to ask, just ask……right here.  We’d love to hear from you and pray for you.

Have you ever thought about perspectives and how they shape our thoughts and actions?  Our background, circumstances, experiences, and preferences all play a role in shaping our viewpoints on the world in general and on specific topics.

One area that can be a potential blind spot for us, though, is the perspectives of others.  While someone else’s viewpoints don’t negate ours, it’s important to remember that our viewpoints don’t negate someone else’s.

So, the question becomes, how do we balance and consider other viewpoints, while also keeping an eye on our own?  The best way to do that is to look at topics, circumstances, preferences, and experiences through God’s viewpoint.  While this may sound new or even odd, if we look at how God wants to be in a right relationship with everyone, that has to mean that we also in a right relationship with each other.  When we look at topics and life events through God’s perspective, it gives us a viewpoint and an assurance beyond ourselves in that moment.  It also helps see other viewpoints, adjust our own when it’s appropriate, and bring us into better relationships with others and with God.

If you’d like to talk some more about looking at life through God’s viewpoint, we’d love to sit down and talk with you about it.  Just send us an email and we’ll set up a time and place to talk.  We hope to get a chance to see you soon!

We’re excited to be heading back out to the Leavenworth City Market this Saturday (September 14th) from 8:00 am – 12:00 pm.  We’ll be back out with our prayer table, offering conversation, prayer, and answers to questions you may have.  The weather forecast looks great for Saturday, so come on out – we’d love to meet you and get a chance to pray for you!

Is there something you’d like prayer for, but you aren’t sure how to ask?  Don’t worry about how to ask, just ask……right here on here.  We’d love to hear from you and pray for you.

With the election coming closer, this seems like a good time to talk about maintaining unity.  Unity doesn’t mean “unanimous”.  In its simplest definition, unity is being joined together.  Other good definitions of unity include being in harmony, being at peace, or having a common identity.

When we consider being joined together, being in harmony, being at peace, or having a common identity, the one place we find that is in Jesus.  Each person is an image-bearer of God, created in God’s image to be in a loving relationship with Him. It’s when we have that relationship with God that we find our only true harmony, peace, and identity. While, as humans, we can find an endless number of differences between us, in God we have endless identity together.  Irishman Edmund Burke summarized it well when he said, “Whatever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.”

So while it’s perfectly fine to have differing opinions on policy, political candidates, or ballot initiatives, none of those provide us with unity, harmony, peace, or true identity.  When we try to find our identity in them, all we end up doing is separating ourselves from each other and that hurts everyone.

If you’d like to talk some more about having unity, especially in our current times, we’d love to sit down and talk with you about it.  Just send us an email and we’ll set up a time and place to talk.  We hope to get a chance to see you soon!

The Leavenworth City Market is coming up again soon

(Saturday, September 14th) from 8:00 am – 12:00 pm.  

We’ll be back out with our prayer table, along with many other farmers and vendors.  Mark your calendars and come on out – we’d love to meet you and get a chance to pray for you!

Is there something you’d like prayer for, but you aren’t sure how to ask?  Don’t worry about how to ask, just ask……click here.  We’d love to hear from you and pray for you.

Welcome back to another weekly edition of Notes from First City!

Do you ever feel like you have too much conflict in your life?  While conflicts will come up in our lives, some of us seem to have more than we can handle and don’t really know what to do about that.

When it comes to dealing with conflict, there are generally two questions at the heart of it:  (1) what is the source of it, and (2) how do I resolve it? While there can be a lot of different sources of a conflict, an important question to ask is, “What is my part of this?”.  

Sometimes that answer is “none”, other times the answer is “all of it”, but usually the answer is somewhere in between.  This is a tough question to ask ourselves and it requires humility and honesty on our part.  But until we ask and answer that question for ourselves, any attempt to resolve the conflict is probably going to be ineffective.

Once we’ve admitted to ourselves what part of the conflict is from us, the most effective way to resolve the conflict is to simply own our part of it.  That doesn’t mean we have to own what someone else did…..but we’ll never truly resolve a conflict if we don’t take responsibility for our part of it and fix that as best we can.

If you’d like to talk some more about conflicts, how to best resolve them, and how to have fewer of them, we’d love to sit down and talk with you about it.  Just message us here on the website or send us an email and we’ll set up a time and place to talk.  We hope to get a chance to see you soon!

Is there something you’d like prayer for, but you aren’t sure how to ask?  Don’t worry about how to ask, just ask……right here on here on the website.  We’d love to hear from you and pray for you.