Country Club Christian Church

Beautiful and Broken

Weekly staff meetings here at the church always begin with a time called Enrichment. Everyone takes turns leading, so each time we are enriched in different ways. It could be a selection of music by one person, a PowerPoint on some aspect of church life by another, and so on.

2025-05-23T08:32:33-05:00May 23, 2025|Categories: Articles, Mike Graves|

HOW TO READ A PARABLE

Many of you already know that we began a brief sermon series last Sunday, one we’re calling “Three Sermons, One Text.” For three weeks in a row, the scripture passage comes from Luke 10:25-37, the well-known parable about a man jumped by thieves while traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho.

2024-07-11T12:54:45-05:00July 5, 2024|Categories: Articles, Mike Graves|

“A Hundred Million Miracles”

In his spiritual memoir, British journalist Philip Toynbee wrote, “The basic command of religion is not ‘do this!’ or ‘do not do that!’ but simply look!” That may seem overly simplistic when one considers all the things the Bible commands us to do, but I think he makes a good point.

2023-09-01T08:35:05-05:00September 1, 2023|Categories: Articles, Mike Graves|

The Conversation Continues

One way to describe a sermon is as “a small piece of the Church’s ongoing conversation.” There are obviously two sides to that equation: there is what gets said prior to any given sermon that preachers account for (scholarly commentaries and everyday conversations), as well as the discourse that continues afterward, when the sermon is no longer the preacher’s but hopefully living on in the people who heard it.

2023-06-22T22:03:20-05:00June 21, 2023|Categories: Articles, Mike Graves, Uncategorized|

Congregation Collaboration

In 1963, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. famously quipped, “It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 o’clock on Sunday morning.” According to religion scholars, more than sixty years later, the assertion remains true.

2022-09-30T11:51:46-05:00September 30, 2022|Categories: Articles, Mike Graves|

Back to Basics

On August 15, we are returning to in-person worship at our three normal times: 9:01, 10:00, and 11:00. You probably already knew that since we’ve been announcing it over and over. But what you may not know is that another “return” is in the works starting that same day, a return to Read More...

2021-08-02T10:53:00-05:00August 2, 2021|Categories: Articles, Mike Graves|

The Power of the Printed Page

By Dr. Mike Graves, Scholar in Residence One of my good friends finished off 2019 by reading his 52nd title of the year. Unless a person’s diet of reading is limited to Dr. Seuss or Daniel Tiger, a book per week is impressive. Of course, my friend is a professor, so reading is part Read More...

2020-02-12T13:35:40-06:00February 12, 2020|Categories: Mike Graves|
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