As the school year winds down, I wanted to share some news about The Gathering’s Literacy Project.The Gathering wants to make a difference not just inside our church but more so in our community. One way we do that is through our Literacy Project, partnering with local schools to provide reading support for students, as well as support for teachers, staff, and the communities those schools serve.E...  Read More

One summer when I was around 10 years old, I was playing with some friends outside. There was a tree in our front yard that produced an inedible fruit that was a perfect size to throw. So one day, we decided to start plucking the fruit and throwing it at each other. Soon we discovered that when this fruit hit the ground, it splattered everywhere. We shifted course and started throwing this fruit o...  Read More

Faith Like a Child - Part 3 Saying SorryContributing Curriculum Team Writers:  Sherrill Wall & Rebekah BackowskiWelcomeToday we consider something almost all parents and teachers insist that children practice in their interactions with others at home, in school, and on the playground, and yet as adults we often have ceased to use in our own interactions – saying “I’m sorry.”  Rather than addressin...  Read More

 Discussion Guide for Faith Like A Child - Part 2: PLAYContributing Curriculum Team Writers: Rebekah Backowski & Sherrill WallWelcomeThis is the second week of our sermon series entitled, “Faith Like A Child.” In today’s CG discussion we will present how PLAY et al is vital in ways we may not have imagined! Science has studied the value of mammal play in….yep, you guessed it…rats.  In his journal ...  Read More

One day, Jesus’ disciples got into an argument over who among them would be the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. It is a silly sounding debate and yet not unlike our world today. We still jockey for position, want to be seen as important, compare ourselves to other people, and imagine that there is some universal human ranking system that we want to score well on. We measure our relative importa...  Read More

Faith Like a Child – Part 1  Wonder A dandelion, a worm, a butterfly, a rock, a seashell, a rainbow, a cloud – all have the possibility of wonder. Things in our everyday surroundings that so easily go unnoticed often become the object of fascination and/or amazement to the children in our lives.  Do you remember your first big natural discovery? Or have you been the recipient of some precious wild...  Read More