Saying goodbye...

It has been a sad 24 hours in the Burch household. We dropped Charles off at the ship around 4 yesterday and said our goodbyes. It was definitely difficult to remain strong for the children, but overall I did relatively well. This morning I woke the children up and prepared them to wave goodbye to Charles from the pier. We waved for about an hour, I took lots of pictures and was surprised not one tear fell. I will miss Charles greatly, he is such a wonderful man. I do however know that with a family like all of you, the children and I will be supported, loved immensely, and well taken care of. I am grateful for your love and prayers. Please continue to pray for our family to remain strong while Charles is away.

Here is a picture I thought was fitting for the day.

Love,
Melissa

Hello everyone, I just wanted to send out a quick message to all my brothers and sisters. It is always hard leaving a good place but the feeling of coming back to such love and kindness is wonderful. I know the being gone for 6 months will be hard on my family but with all of your love and support it will ease the burden. God says that he will not test us more then we can handle so that means we will make it through any storms that come are way....just LOOK TO GOD and he WILL answer.

Take care of each other with unwavering love and devotion and I will see all of you in 6 short months.

God Bless

Love you all

Charles

Soft Christianity

Wow, its been almost two weeks since my last post. I apologize for my delinquency. Hopefully I can get back to at least a weekly entry. We will see. Anyway, I came across a very interesting article on the internet that I wanted to share with you guys. The article comes from the Barna Group website, which I have added to the link list on the sidebar. Barna is a Christian research and resource group that conducts surveys and collects statistics on issues relating to the Christian faith. If you want to read the article click on the following link: Americans Have Commitment Issues. I thought that this was an eye opening study that made me ask a lot of questions regarding my own commitment to God and his Kingdom (the Church). The key point of the article that really made me think was how soft most people's commitment to God is. Most people (myself) are willing to go to Church and do religious stuff but are they(me) really committed to knowing God, loving God, making Jesus Lord (master) of our life? Am I letting God transform me and change my character? Am I making every effort to be close to God? These are good questions to ask ourselves. I believe the last thing that we (I) want to become is just a church goer. Well, read the article and let me know what you think.

Also, I just wanted to share that I have been studying the book of Nehemiah in my quiet times. I am inspired by Nehemiah's concern for the people and his reliance on God through prayer. It convicts me to think about my prayer life when compared to that of Nehemiah. Just thought I would share that with you. Anyway, have a great finish to your week.
Peace,
Rob

A note about the links

As you can see, there is a links column on the right hand side of the blog. I have tried to put in links that I felt would be helpful to everyone. Some links are church related and others are bible study related. I just want to mention a couple that maybe you might not know what they are. First is the E-Sword link. This is a free bible study software package that I use regularly. It is a very good program and gives you a large selection of bible translations, commentaries, and dictionaries. Check it out. I put a link up for Wikipedia. This is a free encyclopedia type web site that has great information on just about anything imaginable. The cool thing about it is that you can add information or correct information to any of the articles on the site. Very cool. I have a link for the Center for Science and Culture. This is a very good site that gives a lot of information about intelligent design and evolution. If that interests you I would definitely check it out. The New Testament gateway and Apollos.ws are two great bible study/theology sites with a lot of great articles and info. The Apollos site is actually run by disciples in Florida. Finally I want to mention the Alvin Plantinga Library site. This site has a collection of articles written by Alvin Plantinga, who is one of the most distinguished Christian philosophers of our time. If you have any interest in Philosophy/Christian philosophy, I would read some of his articles. Well have fun checking out the sites. It is great that we have such incredible resources at our disposal for free. Well I guess you do have to pay for internet service. But most of us do anyway, so we might as well use that service for good. Peace to all.
Rob

Rob's Weekly Blurb

Greetings,
Yes its Wednesday already. It seems that I keep pushing back my weekly post one extra day each week. I'll try to get back to posting on Monday. Anyway, midweek service is tonight. The Tri-Cities will be meeting separate from the Beach at our new location. That is exciting!! I am looking forward to seeing every one tonight. Well, I hope that everyone is having a good week thus far. It is great to have Charles back. I was encouraged to see his recent post. To close this post I have included a passage from Hebrews that I read this morning. It reminded me of Romans 12:1 (living sacrifice). The sacrifice that God desires is for us to acknowledge him and to praise him. I believe this includes prayer, singing, worship, sharing our faith, and so on. Also, God wants us to do good (good deeds) and to share what we have. This goes along with the idea of faith and deeds. When we have a strong faith in God, it is only natural that we will do good things and share what we have with others. That's all folks. Peace out and keep the faith.
Your Brother,
Rob

Hebrews 13:15-16 Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. (16) Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.