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     I think the thrill of the Pagan stories and of romance may be due to the fact that they are mere beginnings—the first, faint whisper of the wind from beyond the world—while Christianity is the thing itself: and no thing, when you have really started on it, can have for you then and there just the same thrill as the first hint. For example, the experience of being married and bringing up a family cannot have the old bittersweet of first falling in love.   This next part struck me as a great inspiration and mature realization for many that I counsel; myself included .     jmt But it is futile (and, I think, wicked) to go on trying to get the old thrill again: you must go forward and not backward. Any real advance will in its turn be ushered in by a new thrill, different from the old: doomed in its turn to disappear and to become in its turn a temptation to retrogression .   Delight is a bell that rings as you s...

    "This age is peculiarly the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, in which Jesus cheers us, not by his personal presence, as he shall do by-and-by, but by the indwelling and constant abiding of the Holy Ghost, who is evermore the Comforter of the church."      "The Holy Spirit consoles, but Christ is the consolation. If we may use the figure, the Holy Spirit is the Physician, but Jesus is the medicine. He heals the wound, but it is by applying the holy ointment of Christ’s name and grace. He takes not of his own things, but of the things of Christ. So if we give to the Holy Spirit the Greek name of Paraclete, as we sometimes do, then our heart confers on our blessed Lord Jesus the title of Paraclesis. If the one be the Comforter, the other is the comfort." -  CH Spurgeon John 14:26   But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of ev...

In our own age the idea that religion belongs to our private life— that it is, in fact, an occupation for the individual’s hour of leisure—is at once paradoxical, dangerous, and natural. It is paradoxical because this exaltation of the individual in the religious field springs up in an age when collectivism is ruthlessly defeating the individual in every other field. . . . . There is a crowd of busybodies, self-appointed masters of ceremonies, whose life is devoted to destroying solitude wherever solitude still exists. ... We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy, and therefore starved for meditation and true friendsh - CS Lewis

TheGrove fellowship is about relationships.   I'm asked about how many come in attendance, how many did you have last week; numbers related questions.   That's not our mission.   TheGrove is about reaching others. The most that many of you will never see on earth.   Dustin- a Mont. Co. fugitive on the run who interrupted our service. As Angie extended the worship music, I went to the back of the cafe and listened to his story. He asked for me to pray for him. He buried his tear stained eyes on my shoulder and we cried out to God. One week later authorities pulled his lifeless body out of the Cumberland.   Michael- who was pulled literally out of the dumpster where he searched for aluminum cans; among the stench and filth, to pay his rent. He was brought into TheGrove to warm up, before going back out again to his work. A year later Michael, wife, and son gave their lives to Christ. TheGrove found Mike a steady reliable job with a godly contra...

    The novel Up At The Villa by W Somerset Maugham is a love story set in early 1940, during Nazi occupation, of a sleepy Italian village in Florence. An aristocratic widow, Mary Panton has her future and wealth sealed upon the death of her abusive, womanizing, yet extremely wealthy husband, an Italian diplomat. In a short time, her heart and love is intrigued for an enigmatic Rowley Flint. An American with with a mysterious past. She falls for him but her aristocratic pride will or would not accept his advances. Flint has truly fallen madly in love with her but soon realizes she has her nose stuck up to high to be associated with him. He deals with his un-requited love and begins to fall into a sense of sadness. As the novel continues, and skipping to the meat of the story, Mary Patton murders a man, after a one night stand, over a senseless and reckless mistake.     Mary resorts to the only man that could help her with this conundrum, The America...

"When we pray the heart of God and man align." Because of our humanity we are not shielded nor able to escape the issues of pain, hardship, and suffering that awaits every mortal being. The beauty of our relationship with God, and I would even say the purpose, is how His grace and power works through the frailties of our life; displaying His manifold power in the deepest and darkest valley's of our human experience. People who live outside of this alignment constitutes the majority of mankind. It is among the masses in which we derive a vocabulary of words with seemingly universal application. For example; the word bad, in the sense of badness, is the opposite of good. Bad is bad. If I say to you that I am good you would not think bad. Good is good; bad is bad. However, the carnal words; used by man; often universal in use; are irrelevant and pale to a spiritual lexicon and perspective. Only in alignment with God; through the lens of faith; do we regard our life ...

I  hope no reader will suppose that 'mere' Christianity is here put for- ward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions. . . . . It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. For that purpose the worst of the rooms (whichever that may be) is, I think, preferable. It is true that some people may find they have to wait in the hall for a considerable time, while others feel certain almost at once which door they must knock at. I do not know why there is this difference, but I am sure God keeps no one waiting unless He sees that it is good for him to wait. When you do get into your room you will find that the long wait has done you some kind of good which you would not have h...