{"id":8758,"date":"2021-07-19T03:21:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-19T03:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8758"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:34:40","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:34:40","slug":"glimpse-of-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=8758","title":{"rendered":"GLIMPSE OF HEAVEN"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now and then I experience a worship service that far transcends the ordinary expectations of a Sunday morning. It becomes a glimpse of the new heavens and the new Earth.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This morning our home church, Community Church of Columbus, celebrated its 30th birthday with a special gathering at a local park.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On a typical Sunday morning, our church consists of three different congregations, each in a different language &#8211; English, Spanish, and Chinese. This morning all three joined together on a hillside at Mill Race Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The combination of past and present church members and leaders and several cultures expressing love for God in various tongues, all set in the beauty of God&#8217;s good creation, opened a brief window into heaven.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To top it off, there were thirteen baptisms following the service.<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My favorite moment was when one lady announced her reason for getting baptized this morning: &#8220;I was actually baptized once before, but when it happened, I was high. So I want to get baptized again &#8211; I&#8217;m not high this time!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/20210718_102958_HDR-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1079\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/20210718_103629_HDR-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1079\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/20210718_114853-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"876\" height=\"875\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/20210718_123651_HDR-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1079\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/20210718_131954-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1449\" height=\"965\"\/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Now and then I experience a worship service that far transcends the ordinary expectations of a Sunday morning. It becomes a glimpse of the new heavens and the new Earth. This morning our home church, Community Church of Columbus, celebrated its 30th birthday with a special gathering at a local park.\u00a0 On a typical Sunday [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8759,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8766,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8758\/revisions\/8766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}