Faith Archive

While the world’s attention is fixed on addressing the coronavirus, a team from Navarre First Assembly of God traveled to Togo, West Africa to address other needs there.

The church, in partnership with Operation Lift Up (www.operationliftup.com), has built and equipped a new pregnancy center to serve this country with its high rate of maternal deaths.

There are a few unique words and expressions in the Bible that have made their way into common English speech.

One of those words is “shibboleth,” which refers to a word, a mannerism, or a mode of dress that is peculiar to a group. It comes from an incident recorded in Judges 12, a conflict between two Israelite tribes, the Ephraimites and the Gileadites.

This past Sunday, a small group from Compass Community Church (compassefca.org), where I am the pastor, gathered before dawn at a picnic pavilion alongside Santa Rosa Sound for a sunrise service.

Our huddled group greeted one another with a subdued, “Happy Easter!” or “Christ is risen!” and the response, “He is risen indeed!” It was early and it was cold.

Last month, I saw a meme that pictured a U.S. weather map where every state but ours was overlaid in colors of icy blue and purple showing frigid temperatures and heavy snow.

The entire state of Florida was overlaid in sunshine yellow and boasted temps in the low 80s north to south. That week in Navarre, our overnight temps dipped into the high 20s and the daytime temps barely crested 40 degrees.

Mid-March 2020, governors across the country imposed size restrictions on public gatherings in their state, attempting to curb the spread of a strange, new virus.

After hastily called meetings, church leaders weighed options for continuing weekly worship services.

Navarre First Assembly of God held its annual missions conference March 6.

“We’ve been doing this about 10 years,” said Iris Tatom, First Assembly’s director of missions, “and each year it has been a little different.”

If you want wisdom, you could scale a distant peak to consult with some wizened sage, or you can drive to Indiana and visit my father-in-law.

My wife and I have just returned from celebrating his 104th birthday with him.