When a person is preparing himself for hard work, we may describe him as “rolling up his sleeves.” Church planters, it would seem, never roll their sleeves back down. At the beginning of 2019, Brad Peppo started his labors as the organizing pastor of a mission work in Dayton, Ohio. Around the same time, the denomination, along with the Presbytery of Ohio, welcomed a new area home missions coordinator, Mike Diercks. Their words and example may encourage us to keep our sleeves rolled up, too.  First Street Reformed Fellowship in Dayton held their first evening worship service on Sunday, August 5, with ten households making up the core group. Soon after this, Peppo began a weekly home group. “We have a good degree of diversity from

Several years ago, my family moved from small-town New Hampshire to a suburban community near Philadelphia. One of the first discoveries we made is that just because an area is full of people does not mean those people know one another.  In northern New England, we figured that weather, geography, and local culture had much to do with some of the isolation between neighbors. But we quickly discovered that crowded suburbs four hundred miles to the south were not much different. Our family could play outside in full view of all the neighbors and yet have remarkably  little social contact with others on our street. Sometimes we might venture a tentative wave as a car drove home, but the neighbor invariably navigated his or her SUV into

Did you know that irritation is an impor­tant dynamic in helping us to be better servants of the Lord Jesus Christ? In Hebrews 10:24, the writer urges us to think carefully about how to—literally—irritateone another to love and good works.  Irritation is our natural response to suggestions for improvement in our personal life or in our church’s life. But the Word of God tells us that such ir­ritation can actually stir us up to love and to do good works, things that are both pleasing to God and beneficial to those around us.  In my work as regional home mis­sionary, I find it very helpful to be ir­ritated by those who have different insights and experiences of church life than my own. If their irritating sug­gestions help me

Charisa Dorn While working as a coffee house barista, I gradually learned an important lesson: a barista is more than just a barista. Often, you are the individual that people look forward to seeing every day. Besides arriving for their daily dose of caffeine, customers come to the café to be recognized and acknowledged.  Doing just that became one of my favorite parts of the job. I tried to remember everyone’s names and drink orders in order to show them  that they were noticed and appreciated. In doing so, I soon realized what an incredible opportunity I had at my job to witness for Christ and demonstrate his love through my work.  A pivotal way to witness in the workplace is by reacting well when people treat us

Recently, John Shaw published an article in Tabletalk magazine (Ligonier Ministries). The title in the magazine is “Prayer That Matters,” but as you will see if you read the article, the emphasis is on evangelistic prayer. The setting of the prayer discussed is an evangelistic setting and John was thinking about how it applies to all prayers, but particularly prayers for the lost in our families, among our friends, and in our communities. If you read the article, think about how John’s two main points would change your own prayers for the lost, and how they might change our church prayer meetings. Here is the online link in Tabletalk: “Prayer That Matters” – John Shaw (content taken from outwardopc.org)