Forest Park Church of Christ

I love music. I've always loved music. But when I started playing a musical instrument in fourth grade, I had (and still do sometimes) a poor sense of rhythm. Each...

Have you ever been in the presence of greatness? Perhaps you shook the hand of a world leader. Maybe you got close to a famous athlete. Or you may have...

Life is defined by a series of choices. You may have heard the analogy before that just like great oak trees grow from tiny acorns, the decisions we make turn around and make us. We are who we are today because of decisions and choices we made years ago.

  Before he died in 1955 at the age of 24, the American actor James Dean starred in his second film Rebel without a Cause, in which he played a moody,...

Some would love to have lives like Niagara Falls— wild, spectacular, and loud. But power without control dissipates into useless energy.

  We take approximately 23,000 breaths every day, but when was the last time we thanked God for one of them? The process of inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide...

Like Job, his wife, and friends, we struggle with the question: “Why am I, or the people I love suffering?” That's why the age-old book of Job still speaks to us today.

Bob Vernon was a Los Angeles motorcycle police officer. The day was dawning when he saw a red pickup truck speed through a stop sign. This guy must be late...

Our responses to these little emotional nanocrafts can build or squelch relationships in marriage, with our children, and the greater world around us.

Paul instructed us to be imitators of God” in the opening verses of Ephesians 5. Then, he sets about to give us usable definitions and examples of what that looks like. Like the Louvre copyists, well never reach perfection before we get to heaven. However, we must resist the temptation to be satisfied with our present imitation of Jesus.

In 1818, Ignaz Phillip Semmelweis was born into a world of dying women. The finest hospitals lost one out of six young mothers to the scourge of “childbed fever.” A...

A long while ago, a painting by Anna Mary Robertson, better known as Grandma Moses, was brought to the Antiques Roadshow for appraisal. Born before the Civil War, Robertson did not take...

A curious 15-year-old boy named Adrian was taking piano lessons from a teacher when a question hit him that would change the next five years of his life. Grand piano...

God has called us to mature growth in a much larger arena--into the whole creation—it's only when we prepare for that mission that we become the servant God has called us to be.

Its super important to not only know who we are but where our lives are headed.  Without that kind of direction, we will often slog through life without ever accomplishing or becoming who God has called us to be.  Someone once said that life without God is like an unsharpened pencil – it has no point.

To be fruitful in life, to make a difference in God's kingdom in everything we do. There undoubtedly will be hard times, times of turmoil, stress, and suffering. Even in these times, we want to be a “tree” whose leaves do not wither. Even if we're not bearing much fruit at the moment, we want to remain vital, a “tree” in the mode of Psalm 1.

Our world thirsts for grace in ways it does not even recognize. The hymn Amazing Grace edged onto the Top Ten charts two hundred years after composition.  The hymns composer John Newton, who was once an infidel and slave trader, had been thirsty for grace. After he discovered the grace of God, he never ceased to be amazed.

Sometimes even the best of us can lose our connection to the head, we can forget who we are called to be and why were here.  This is Jesus Church, he paid the price and our lives belong to Him. 

We often hear people talk about following in others footsteps or paving the way for the next generation, but what does that really mean?  How can we equip others to follow us without creating dependencies or resentments?

We certainly live in a world today with more communication options than ever before, but are we better communicators? Research says no, in fact, some say we are in the midst of a loneliness epidemic.  Just having the ability to talk isn't communication.  Good communication is the thoughtful preparation of thoughts and feelings to influence or inform another person and is something of an art.

Mount Everest, the earth's highest mountain, has two standard routes used by most climbers. Both routes present a number of dangers, including frigid temperatures and hurricane-category high winds not to...

The 2010s were a tipping point for global Christianity. In 2020, more than half the world's Christians live in Africa and Latin America, according to a new report from the Center for the Study of Global Christianity.

Much of our spiritual development happens through grace!  Just as God's grace has a justifying and sanctifying effect in our lives, through which we learn to seek to advance God's kingdom agenda, children and marriages flourish in an environment of grace.

Poet Maya Angelou was asked in an interview for Harvard Business Review what one of the most important lessons she ever learned was and from whom she learned it. She...

Winston Churchill said, “Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. That may be a typical response to truth, but it places those who respond that way on the road to tragedy and destruction.

Proverbs 24:3-4  By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

The movie Cinderella Man is based on the true story of a boxer named James J. Braddock. Braddock was a good boxer who lost his passion and purpose for fighting,...

The power of a successfully communicated thought, from one human mind to another, is one of the greatest forces we know. But like the tango, it takes two to communicate. You can communicate a thought, but your thought may not be understood.

Love crawls with the baby, walks with the toddler, runs with the child, then stands aside to let the youth walk into adulthood. Love is the key that opens salvation's message to a child's heart. Before I became a mother I took glory in my career and my house. Now I glory in God's perfection of my child.

Two women were loading up their cars after a trip to the grocery store. As they were putting their groceries into their neighboring cars, one of the women couldn't help...

The Church in Smyrna found themselves in an interesting dichotomy. Their home city was wealthy and beautiful, faithfully connected to the power of Rome. But while the city was rich...

The land known to the Romans as Asia Minor and which now forms a large part of Turkey is a remarkable mix of culture, history and geography. There were large...

As Jesus extends his hand toward us the evidence of the cost of sin still remains imprinted there, but death and sin have no mastery over him He faced sin without failure and has faced death conquering mankinds ultimate enemy. Christ's victory over the grave gives us assurance of our own victory through his power demonstrated so humbly all those years ago.

I recently read an article about Sohan Singh who has banned customers from his grocery store in England. He told a London newspaper that he was forced to take such...

Have you ever noticed that when we read a novel or watch a movie we tend to identify with a person, group of people, or situation in it. It seems to be a natural human characteristic to find personal connections with a story. No doubt that is why Jesus often used the parables to teach the crowds.

When we hear of an untimely death or acts of violence we Naturally ask, “Why?” Why did this have to happen to this person? Perhaps the victim was a good loving person, a family person, or a valued citizen.

Wouldn't Popeye have been better off if he had he eaten a well-balanced diet every day, including the healthy doses of spinach? That way, he would have been well fortified and ready to face whatever crisis arose, rather than having to wolf down his spinach in the heat of the battle.

I've recently been reading about the life and ministry of Hudson Taylor, a remarkable evangelist who went to China with the simple Biblical message of the good news about Jesus....

Quite possibly the best-known parable or teaching of Jesus is the story of the good Samaritan. Likely we've all heard verses 30-35 “A man was going down from Jerusalem to...

In Luke 9:51 Luke records that When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. It only really takes about...

The way you think determines the way you feel, and the way you feel determines the way you act. If you want to change the way you act or feel , start by changing the way you think.

We can have the right perspective now, as Paul did. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ”

If we're not careful we can become like the blow fish. A little flattery, a little tickling of our ego and we swell up, giving the appearance of substance and yet in reality there's nothing substantive to us at all were just air.

What are you living for? Your answer to that question will determine so much of the rest of your life! If your purpose is wrong, your direction will be wrong....

Dave Brandon shares the following powerful story: “I'm not much for jewelry. A wedding ring was all I ever wanted —until now. Next to my wedding ring, on the little...

The best way to start a movement of bold witness is to step out in boldness ourselves.

The Oldest vine in the world: In Hampton Court, UK there is a grapevine that is reported to be the oldest living vine. It is over 250 years old. This...

So often we look to the old testament as non-relevant or simply historical, yet God wishes it to be so much more. Through its pages we find stories like that of Ruth which inspire and motivate our hearts to a closer relationship. Still other stories point out our own weaknesses and failings and challenge us to consider our own situation today. Todays lesson explores a man who was placed in a very strange type of quarantine, and yet the lessons he learned are lessons we can still use today.

Research shows you'll be bored, frustrated, lonely, angry, and stressed. Humans don't like to be thrown out of their routines, particularly when the changes leave them feeling trapped.  There have...

The Cross was designed to take away all dignity and to completely destroy a person mentally and emotionally as it did so physically.

John 8:36 – So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free.