Emphasis Preaching Journal

"For years," Marsha said, "I never bothered about church. My family and I were poor. We lived right next to a church, and week after week could see members driving up in their nice cars with their good clothes. They kept all the holidays. They had special celebrations at Christmas. We could hear the singing and the laughter. Somehow, though, they never seemed to look our way. They kept up the form of their religion, and we thought that was all there was to it. For many of them, that was probably the case. Then there came the night my older brother died in an accident."