Pastor Eve Mercie

The church in the New Testament bears very little resemblance to what most people picture when they hear the word. No buildings. No designated clergy in the modern sense. No Sunday morning service with a program. What the early church had was people who had encountered the risen Christ, who sold what they owned to … Read more

The Great Commission was not given to professionals. Matthew 28:19 records Jesus saying Go therefore and make disciples of all nations. He was speaking to eleven people standing on a hillside in Galilee. Fishermen, a former tax collector, people whose primary qualification was that they had spent three years following Jesus around. No formal theological … Read more

Judge not is the verse everyone knows, and almost everyone misquotes. Matthew 7:1 is pulled out constantly as the biblical argument against any form of evaluation, assessment, or moral discernment. What it actually says, in context, is stop judging hypocritically, because the standard you apply to others will be applied to you. The verses that … Read more

Storms do not care about your plans. They arrive on their own schedule, disrupt whatever was in progress, and leave behind damage that takes far longer to repair than the storm itself lasted. Whether the storm is literal, the kind that floods a basement and takes down power lines, or the kind that arrives as … Read more

Snow silences things. Anyone who has stood outside after a heavy snowfall knows the particular quiet that descends with it. The familiar landscape becomes unrecognizable. Sound travels differently. The ordinary world is covered so completely that what was there before can no longer be seen, only trusted to still be present underneath. Scripture borrows this … Read more

Difficult times do not ask permission before they arrive. They show up in the middle of plans, in the middle of what felt like stable seasons, in the middle of stretches where things were finally going well. A diagnosis comes back wrong. A relationship collapses. The financial ground that looked solid turns out to have … Read more

Bullying is the use of power against someone who has less of it, and it has existed long before the word was coined. Goliath stood in the valley of Elah for forty days and hurled insults at Israel’s army. Every morning and every evening he came out and taunted them, and every morning and every … Read more

Trust is not given. It is built, slowly, through consistent behavior over time, and it can be destroyed far faster than it was constructed. Most people who struggle with trusting others in relationships are not struggling because of a character flaw or an excess of caution. They are struggling because they have been in situations … Read more

Biblical boldness is not the absence of fear. It is the decision to move anyway. Peter was afraid in the courtyard. He denied Jesus three times before the rooster crowed, exactly as Jesus had predicted. That same Peter, fifty days later, stood in front of the crowd at Pentecost and preached with such directness that … Read more

Rejoicing is not the same as being happy. Happiness responds to what is happening. Rejoicing is a decision made regardless of what is happening. This is why Paul could write rejoice in the Lord always from a prison cell. The circumstances did not support the instruction. He gave it anyway, and then added: I will … Read more