By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Show-and-tell reveals surprising faith symbols
Placeholder Image

A kindergarten teacher had asked her students to bring a symbol of their religion for show-and-tell.


She asked for volunteers to show what they had brought to the rest of the class.


One girl came forward and said, “I am Jewish, and this is my star of David.”


Another came forward and said, “I am Catholic, and this is my rosary.”


The last little boy came forward and said, “I am Southern Baptist, and this is my covered dish.”


When you stop and think about it, a covered dish is actually a very important religious symbol.  Jesus showed that he loved sinners by eating with them (Mark 2:16). Jesus showed that he could provide for our needs by feeding 5,000 and teaching us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matthew 6:11). Then Christ instituted the holy tradition of communion at His Last Supper, when he ate bread with his disciples and told them, “Take and eat it, this is my body” (Matthew 26:26).


Eating with someone is a way to share fellowship (Galatians 2:12). Jesus uses a picture of knocking at your door to eat dinner with you as a symbol of fellowship with Him. Jesus says, “Listen! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and have dinner with him, and he with Me” (Revelation 3:20, HCSB).


So maybe a covered dish is a good symbol of the faith, after all. Pass the fried chicken!


(Copyright 2013 by Bob Rogers. Email: brogers@fbcrincon.com. Read this column each Friday in the Herald. Visit my blog at www.bobrogers.me.)

Is there a church for a big woman with an itch?
Placeholder Image

A pastor was called to be guest preacher at a church. He knew this church was different when the congregation ended every line of the hymn with the shout of “yeehah!”


As he stood to preach, he noticed that people were spread out on the pews. He would see a person, then a space, then another person, and another space. He wondered why nobody sat next to another person, when he noticed on the pew beside each person was a cowboy hat.


Another time this same preacher was invited to a new church in the city. He was surprised to see that everybody there looked like they had fallen face first into a tackle box, because they had piercings and earrings on every part of the body imaginable. A rock band was playing alternative music on the stage.


As different as these two churches were, they were both growing and reaching people for Christ.


Years ago I was pastor of a small country church in the backwoods of Mississippi. There was another Baptist church just five miles away in the town (population 600). The pastor’s wife at the town church asked me, “Why don’t our two churches merge?” I said, “There are people in my church who would not feel comfortable or fit in at your town church.” She said, “Oh, come on. We’re a small town church. What could be so different?”


I said, “Well, I got one really big woman in my church who, when she gets to feeling an itch, she pulls her dress halfway up and she scratches herself.”


The eyes of this pastor’s wife got really big and she said, “I see what you mean.”


I forgot to tell her about another woman in my church who saw a roach running across the wood floor, so she stomped on it with her bare foot, laughed and shouted, “Aha! I got him!”


Yep, the culture was definitely different where I was pastor.


Jesus upset the religious establishment because He crossed cultural barriers. He loved to eat with tax collectors and Gentiles and other strange people. Jesus walked into the land of Samaria, full of half-breed Jews who worshiped in weird ways and talked different and smelled different.


Jesus walked right up to a Samaritan woman at a well and started talking her language. He accepted her culture, but he let her know her sinful lifestyle had to change. Soon she had the whole town following Jesus (see John 4).


So what cultural barrier is keeping somebody in your community from hearing the gospel? If you tear down the cultural barriers to share Christ in your neighborhood, you may hear the angels shouting, “Yeehah!”


Copyright 2014 by Bob Rogers. Email: brogers@fbcrincon.com. Read this column each Friday in the Herald. Visit my blog at www.bobrogers.me.