Shelbyville Community Church

“Parenting is only hard…if you’re doing it right.” I remember hearing that for the first time. I felt seen, and a bit relieved. Sometimes there are phrases that haunt your thoughts in a good way. That’s one of them for me. I’ve often felt inadequate and undereducated when it comes to parenting. How am I—imperfect, sinful, easily distracted—able to raise children who are faithfully following Jesus?...

My neighborhood is located very close to a water tower where a weather siren is mounted. I know I should be grateful and take heed every time that siren goes off, but I don’t. When it first goes off, it does what it is supposed to do. It is intrusive, alarming, distracting, attention getting, and functions as a warning! After just a short while (if the tornado doesn’t materialize immediately), it...

Happy Father’s Day tomorrow as we begin a summer series based on the Proverbs of King Solomon. He definitely had some situations that we can glean from! There were two teenage brothers, out for summer break, and they decided they would start a business, selling eggs they got from their grandmother. They bought the eggs for a dollar a dozen, and started selling the eggs for a dollar a dozen. They c...

How do you define family? How you answer that question will affect the way you live. How you answer will show you your priorities and motivations. How you answer will show you what you believe the Bible says. How you answer will drive your expectations of what Family Ministry looks like in a local church. Waving the white flag? Please don’t. We all have different views and backgrounds because so m...

I've been involved in churches my entire life. I came to faith in Jesus at 16. I've worked in ministry in paid and non-paid positions since I was 18. I've seen Christians get heated about a lot of things: what to believe, political views, social issues, leadership structures, and money, to name a few. But one area I've never seen someone get worked up over is prayer. In fact, w...

We've all lost something: keys, a wallet, a phone. It's a part of the human experience. Some things are easy to replace. Some things can't be replaced because they provide so much value, and others hold so much meaning. This is why Jesus uses this illustration to prove the importance of lost things being found. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is sharing a meal with sinners and societal...

Almost 10 years ago I was asked to take the Coffee Team and turn it into a Coffee Ministry. The goal was to learn everything I needed to know to help them move in the direction leadership wanted them to go. Many changes were needed to be made, or things added new, to make this happen. And this is where my serving story begins. As I was learning all that the Coffee Team had done and was doing. I pu...

As we continue our Why Church? series, we’re answering the question, “Why should I grow with the Bible?” Did you know that if you were to drop someone off in the middle of nowhere with no bearings for how to get to civilization—and no training on how to plot a course—that person would literally wander in circles? The reason is that the average human has one leg slightly longer than the other. So,...

The Psalmist said: “The earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants, belong to the LORD;” (Psalm 24:1, CSB). Throughout Scripture, God is seen as the owner, while we are given a little time and a little opportunity to manage his resources. When you recognize whose stuff it is that you manage, it is changes everything: attitude, behavior, and habits—at a very profound level. Anyone re...

Three of the guys on our staff team are into grilling. I mean, really into it. They will baste, smoke, marinade, and even time the various meats they cook. To them, it’s a science. In fact, I want to say that they are obsessed with it, but I don’t think that does it justice. And frankly, I don’t get it. I mean, that is what restaurants are for. I will grill if it’s necessary or if my wife makes me...

Baptism is a picture of a new life! This weekend we have the amazing opportunity to celebrate what God is doing here at SCC through the ancient practice of baptism. We’re used to thinking that baptism day is about us or the other people who made their declaration of faith alongside of us, but nothing could be further from the truth. Baptism is a celebration and picture of Christ’s loving work of s...

David Foster Wallace was a Post-Modern author who was widely admired and respected. He was an academic, not even close to a follower of Jesus. He was giving the commencement address at a liberal arts college shortly before He died (he took His own life at the age of 46), and this is what he said: “… in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing...

Have you ever followed, or even loved, a sports team? Many people who do buy a jersey, learn all the information they can about that team, and grow as a follower of that team. When it comes to a team jersey, the big life lesson is not letting the name on the back become bigger than the name on the front. That is hard when players are called to become great and the greater they are the better their...

For thousands of years, people have gathered on Easter Sunday to proclaim a central and powerful truth. They’ve not gathered to say, “The Stock Market has risen” or “The dollar has risen”. They haven’t come together to say “the Housing Market has risen”, or “the value of my 401 K has risen.” The one hope that has held people and cultures and countries together all over the world in the face of pov...

If you ever go on vacation to Massachusetts and find yourself on Nantucket Island, there is a museum there that centers on the efforts of an organization that is centuries old. Two hundred years ago, travel by sea was very dangerous and—given storms in the Atlantic and the rocky coast of Massachusetts—a lot of lives were lost just a mile or so away from the coast. So a group of volunteers went int...

If you are in town this weekend, I hope you will come and worship with us in person. If not, I hope you will join us online as we continue the thought, “We are Better Together.” While Jesus Christ was on the earth in a physical body He was committed to that truth. As He began His earthly ministry, one of the first things He did was to gather together His small group! Mark 3:13-15 – And He went up...

A few years ago, I learned about a type of long-distance backpacking called thru hiking. In the U.S., we have three long-distance scenic trails that people try to complete in one continuous footpath. The Appalachian Trail, the shortest of the three, is 2,200 miles in length. It spans 14 states, and starts at Springer Mountain in Georgia and ends at Mt. Katahdin in Maine. There is a phrase that thr...

Consider this your invitation to live the rooted life. The rooted life is an anchored life and a nourished life. We’ve chosen to describe the rooted life this way: Live a Rooted Life Prayer, Scripture, and Worship are at the heartbeat of our relationship with God. Through Scripture and prayer, we seek God’s presence, listen for His voice, and align our hearts with his will. Through worship, we res...

When Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God, He would almost always use a parable. A parable is a made-up story from the real-world Jesus often used to illustrate life in the Kingdom of God. I would like to tell you a true story to illustrate relationships in the Kingdom of God. And, borrowing from Jesus’ approach to how He introduced parables, I will begin like this: The Kingdom of God is like a f...

When I was growing up, there was a game show called “Let’s make a Deal!” Its host was a man named Monty Hall. At the end of the program, Monty would show the two winning contestants three doors. There was something behind all three doors. It may be a donkey eating a piece of fruit or it could be a new car or even an expensive vacation. But the contestants had to choose the right door. Choose the w...

As we prepare to wrap up our series in the gospel of John, we’re going to take a look at Peter. At this point in the story, he is no longer one of Jesus’ disciples. He had denied Jesus and gone back to a life of fishing. Shortly after Jesus’ resurrection, Peter finds himself face-to-face with the person he denied. Can you imagine the feelings of shame and regret that washed over Peter at that mome...

I remember hearing the story of 4 people that were sitting across from each other in a little stall on a train. On one side were a college basketball player and his coach. On the other side was a beautiful college-aged girl with her grandma. It was clear that there was an attraction between the basketball player and the young woman, as they exchanging flirtatious glances at one another. Then sudde...

The accusations hurled at Jesus paved the way for you and I to live free of accusation. In Romans 8:1, we are told “There is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Part of what that means is that Jesus does not accuse us, that through Him we are accepted by God even in our sinfulness. About 25 years ago, rumors began to spread about a certain Catholic woman who was having vi...

Baptism is a picture of a new life! This weekend we have the amazing opportunity to celebrate what God is doing here at SCC through the ancient practice of baptism. We’re used to thinking that baptism day is about us or the other people who made their declaration of faith alongside of us, but nothing could be further from the truth. Baptism is a celebration and picture of Christ’s loving work of s...

One of my first experiences with betrayal happened when I was about 13 years old. A woman hired a friend and I to clean out her garage, and had told us that anything we found in her garage we could keep. As we were rummaging through her junk, my friend found the stock or the handle of what looked like a very old rifle of some kind. It would turn out to be the stock of a gun used during the Civil W...