Jim Mulholland-4.21.07-In the 1970's, when I was a teenager, Hal Lindsey published a book called The Late Great Planet Earth. You may not have heard of it, but if you grew up in the conservative churches of my childhood, it was required reading. Essentially, Lindsey argued that - with the return of the Jewish people to Palestine in 1948 - the doomsday clock had begun to tick. He predicted we were in the last days and Jesus would soon return. Though he didn't announce an exact date, he thought the Bible promised only one more generation, or about 40 years.

Jim Mulholland-4.08.07-Years ago, in a church newsletter, I abbreviated the announcement of the annual Christmas party with the word "Xmas." The next day, Shirley – a woman in the church - called to ask if I was trying to “X� Jesus out of Christmas. I explained I had no such intention, that the little box on the calendar hadn't left room for the longer word. I also explained "X" actually represented the first letter in the Greek work "Christos" and had long been shorthand for Christ. I thought she’d be impressed with my knowledge of ancient Greek and church history. Instead, Shirley suggested I print a larger calendar.

Phil Gulley-4.8.07- I have a friend who’s moving to Danville. He lives down in Seymour and can't get up here that often, so I promised I'd keep an eye peeled for houses for sale. Last Sunday, I was driving through town and passed a house that had a big sign taped to one of its porch columns. The sign read, Lost Cat! Three legs. Yellow With Green Eyes. I was grateful they'd mentioned the cat’s eye color. One sees so many three-legged cats, it’s good to have more specifics.

Jim Mulholland-4.6.07-Growing up, I always liked Palm Sunday.  Every year, the children would be lined up in the church vestibule and handed a large palm branch.  As the congregation sang the first hymn, we were told to march to the front of the sanctuary while waving our palm branches in the air.

Philip Gulley-4.1.07-As many of you are aware, our home was struck by lightning this past week.  It struck the highest point on our roof, right over where I was sleeping.  Joan is a morning person and was already up.  It blasted a hole in the roof, scattering wood and shingles in a fifty-yard radius.  After the firefighters left, I phoned the man, Brad, who’s been working on the interior of our home to tell him we now had some exterior work needing done.  Brad stopped by the house later that day, went up to the attic and noting the proximity of the lightning strike to where I’d been sleeping, asked me if I’d missed church the Sunday before.

Phil Gulley-3.27.06-We've been talking about the two Christianities.  The first is the revivalism Christianity which believes every word in the Bible is literally true, whose leaders often claim divine authority, and insist it is the only path to God.  More and more thoughtful people are rejecting those assumptions.  A tenet of that old Christianity had to do with apocalyptic theology, which asserts that God will end the world with cataclysmic violence, after rapturing the evangelical Christians to heaven.