“When we reflect how prone we are to be drawn into error in our judgments, and into vice in our practice; and how unable, at least how very unwilling, to espy or correct our own miscarriages; when we consider how apt the world is to flatter us in our faults, and how few there are so kind as to tell us the truth; what an inestimable privilege must it be to have a set of true, judicious, hearty friends about us, continually watching over our souls, to inform us where we have fallen, and to warn us that we fall not again for the future.” —George Whitefield
“This was the staple preaching of [George] Whitefield. He was always great upon that which he called the great R—Regeneration. Whenever you heard him, the three Rs came out clearly—Ruin, Regeneration, and Redemption! Man ruined, wholly ruined, hopelessly, helplessly, eternally ruined! Man regenerated by the Spirit of God, and by the Spirit of God alone wholly made a new creature in Christ! Man redeemed by precious blood from all his sins, not by works of righteousness, not by deeds of the law, not by ceremonies, prayers, or resolutions, but by the precious blood of Christ!” —Charles Spurgeon
Here is a cool story about the churches in Cedar Springs making history.
In working on my message for our Aliens and Strangers series, I cam across this great post: Next-Door Strangers.
“See Him; like a cart pressed down with sheaves He goes through the streets of Jerusalem. Well may you weep, daughters of Jerusalem, though He bids you dry your tears; they hoot Him as He walks along bowed beneath the load of His own Cross which was the emblem of your sin and mine. They have brought Him to Golgotha. They throw Him on his back, they stretch out His hands and His feet. The accursed iron penetrates the tenderest part of His body, where most the nerves do congregate. They lift up the Cross. O bleeding Savior, Thy time of woe has come! They dash it into the socket with rough hands; the nails are tearing through His hands and feet. He hangs in extremity, for God has forsaken Him; His enemies persecute and take Him, for there is none to deliver Him. They mock His nakedness; they point at His agonies. They look and stare upon Him with ribald jests; they insult His griefs, and make puns upon His prayers. He is now indeed a worm and no man, crushed till you can think scarcely that there is divinity within. The fever gets hold upon Him. His tongue is dried up like a potsherd, and He cries, ‘I thirst!’ Vinegar is all they yield Him; the sun refuses to shine, and the thick midnight darkness of that awful mid-day is a fitting emblem of the tenfold midnight of His soul. Out of that thick horror He cries ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’ Then, indeed, was He pressed down! O there was never sorrow like unto His sorrow. All human griefs found a reservoir in His heart, and all the punishment of human guilt spent itself upon His body and His soul. 
Craig T. Owens 