Calvary Wolfeboro

The world that the Church was birthed into was a world of normalized sexual immorality. It’s for that reason, in part, that so many of the lists of sins given in the New Testament begin with sexual immorality. Knowing that fornication and the like would be all around the Church, God made sure that His Body knew that sexual immorality wouldn’t be allowed in it. Fast forward to 2018, sexual immorali...

There seems to be two kinds of leaders. Those who are too comfortable with leadership and those who are two uncomfortable. As the church, we have the responsibility of leading the way in finding the happy medium between these two extremes. There should always be a healthy fear in the heart of every leader that he or she would become domineering or autocratic. But there should also be a healthy fea...

"Expectations kill relationships." You’ve probably heard someone make this claim. Yet, while expectations are often at the center of the breakdown in relationships, it isn’t always the expectations themselves that are to blame. When it comes to our relationships in the church, we need to first make sure that we have the right expectations of each other. This is nowhere more important than the expe...

A recent study by Barna showed that a breakdown in trust was responsible for two devastating realities. The first is that the number one reason people give for not attending church anymore is that they don't trust church leadership. The second is even more devastating. For those who claim to have rejected belief in God completely, a lack of trust in the local church is among the top three reasons...

There is no greater indicator of the potential impact of a church than it’s view of God. The greater a church’s awe and wonder of God, the greater it’s impact for God. The fear of God removes the fear of man. Boldness in proclaiming and living out the Gospel is produced by an accurate understanding of God and obedience to His Lordship. This reminder is vital for any church that wants to begin or c...

There is no greater indicator of the potential impact of a church than it’s view of God. The greater a church’s awe and wonder of God, the greater it’s impact for God. The fear of God removes the fear of man. Boldness in proclaiming and living out the Gospel is produced by an accurate understanding of God and obedience to His Lordship. This reminder is vital for any church that wants to begin or c...

"Joy is the flag that flies over the castle of our hearts announcing that the king is in residence today.” These words were penned by Walter Knight to all Christians everywhere at every time. When Jesus is involved, there is joy. As we finish our study of the book of Philippians we look back over this letter that has oozed with joy and consider one more time, where is the joy? The answer shouldn’t...

The apostle Paul quoted Jesus as saying, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” This profound truth is the foundation of our calling as Christians to be generous. The church in Philippi was a generous church. Throughout the New Testament we read of this church actively seeking to bless Paul with material gifts and provision. They seem, however, to be the exception to the rule. Based on seve...

The apostle Paul claimed that he had learned to be content in "whatever situation" he was in. That may not immediately seem hard to believe until you understand what contentment is. Jeremiah Burroughs, in his classic work on contentment, "The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment" defines Christian contentment as, "that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and deli...

When you think about joy, you probably don't think about suffering. When you consider the grace of God, you probably don't think about persecution. Yet, in Philippians 1:29, the apostle Paul ties belief in Jesus and suffering for Jesus together as a package deal. It's not that God inflicts us supernaturally once we give our lives to Christ. Suffering is simply the normal result of a life lived "wo...

Interest groups abound. It doesn’t matter how obscure a person’s interest is, there is a group of people out there somewhere with the same interests. The google search “international association of” results in over 100 million websites. There’s even a union of international associations; Yep, an association for associations. This idea of common interest groups has even infiltrated the mindset of t...

Of all the emotions that human beings have, joy or happiness is the most sought after. Blaise Pascal, the famous Mathematician, Physicist and Theologian of the early 1600s observed, "All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with d...

The fork in the road. It's a metaphor that describes the times in our lives where one decision will lead us in one of two very different directions. This same idea applies to human history. There are events that have forever divided the path that humanity has taken. The events of Genesis 4 describe one such fork in the road. Two men, Cain and Abel, take very different paths and the paths they take...

One of the most profound lies that modern humanity has swallowed - hook, line, and sinker - is that human beings are fundamentally good. This, of course, flies in the face of the evidence all around us. In order, then, to perpetuate this lie, an explanation must be given for why it doesn’t seem like humanity is fundamentally good. The most common secular explanation for this apparent contradiction...

What is a person's gender? Until very recently in human history this question had a simple answer. It is still the case when one looks up the definition. Merriam-Webster, for example, states that gender is "a: SEX - the feminine gender; b: the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex." Understood from this definition, gender is understood as synonymous with t...

“Beginnings matter. The start of a race often determines its winner. The foundation of a house establishes the strength of its entire structure. So it is with the ideas that shape our lives. Their beginnings matter more than most people even realize. And yet so few consider the beginning of the greatest book ever written, the Bible. In it’s first book, Genesis, we find a treasure trove of truths a...

We've all heard the cliche, "Desperate times call for desperate measures." It's believed that Hippocrates, the Greek physician, coined the idea in relation to the treatment of serious disease. His belief was that a severe disease required equally severe treatment. The book of Ruth opens with a desperate situation. There is a famine in Judah. In Bethlehem, a man named Elimelech decides to uproot hi...

For the follower of Christ, surrender is par for the course. As it was for the Savior, so it is for His servants. Like Jesus, we must deal with sin, die to self, and dwell in submission. Of course, Jesus didn’t have to deal with the sin in his own life, he had to deal with our sin. And yet, even though He never sinned, his life was the prototype of the surrender that means for us giving up your li...