Countryside Church of the Nazarene

Countryside Church of the Nazarene Traditional country church, Spirit-led, broken people loving other broken people, in Christ’s name. God does incredible things at Countryside.

We are constantly amazed at God's faithfulness and would love for you to become a part of our family!

09/02/2026

Ecclesiastes 8:1 (KJV) - Who is as the wise man? and who knoweth the interpretation of a thing? a man's wisdom maketh his face to shine, and the boldness of his face shall be changed.
Have you ever been in a group that was wrestling with a difficult decision? Perhaps you were at work, or at school, or part of some other group and you were facing some stark choices. The discussion goes back and forth, sometimes it gets heated, sometimes there is despair, but it is getting nowhere. Then, someone says something. It may come from the least respected person in the group; someone everyone has been ignoring because their ideas are “strange” and yet their words linger in the air at that moment as if a light just shone in the darkness. When we meet wisdom, especially from people we do not expect it from, it can burst upon us like light breaking through the clouds.
God speaks as God wills, through who God wills to speak. Wisdom comes from making yourself a vessel of God’s truth, to pour out when the Holy Spirit prompts you. I wish I could say that when the group seizes upon the wisdom spoken that their respect for that person goes up, but group dynamics often don’t allow for that as they soon lapse back into their “understood” shared reality. We don’t know why God showers wisdom into our lives when God so chooses. But we need to be listening always and be prepared to be that vessel of the truth, even if it makes us an outcast in the group because we have these “strange” ideas. Do you seek to belong to the “understanding” or do you seek God’s wisdom? Sometimes they align but often they don’t. It requires courage to make yourself a vessel unbound to popular opinion but ever willing to serve wisdom from above. Blessings upon you.

08/29/2026

Proverbs 11:19 (KJV) - As righteousness tendeth to life: so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death.
It is kind of a trope in fiction that the bad guy, who at the start of the book seems utterly invincible, always finds a way to destroy themselves and their evil plans. Simply put, if you do not build for love, towards supporting and encouraging others, whatever you build will fall from the forces of the evil you invest in. If you are greedy, your pursuit of wealth will cost you happiness, make you enemies, and will NEVER be enough. Millionaires think their problems will be solved by being a billionaire and billionaires think that their problems will be solved by being trillionaires. It will never be enough because you are pursuing false dreams. Money is easy to grasp so people fall prey to the obsession of pursuing wealth. The problem is that wealth is not happiness, it is not living in joy. Oh, you may have abundant possessions, but the more you possess, the more they possess you.
So, pursue life, pursue laughter, pursue love. All these are hard to do, and you do not realize that you have been successful until peace enters your heart and for a brief moment in this fallen world, you are at rest. Now the impulses will soon start to stir to lead you astray but focus on peace, focus on the people in your life, and focus on love. Love can change from moment to moment – it is both eternal and ephemeral. Eternal in that it can last forever, but ephemeral in that it changes faces – what may be a loving gesture in one moment passes as the moment passes and we need to keep seeking new ways to love and appreciate the joy associated with love. Only in love do we transcend death and go beyond to those distant shores. Evil stops our progress, stops our joy, stops our lives. Only love lives on. Blessings upon you.

08/21/2026

Ecclesiastes 7:29 (KJV) - Lo, this only have I found, that God hath made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions.
One thing has regularly astounded me in my long life, and that is the endless ingenuity people have for inventing excuses for not doing the right thing. I confess, I have displayed some rare ingenuity myself when I have found myself in uncomfortable situations, of my own fault. Lately I don’t do that so much – hopefully in part because God is working in me, but also because as an older man, I no longer have the energy to spin lies and misdirection. I actually stopped lying long before I made my way back to Christ because it is exhausting and I am “too lazy to lie.” Really, for every lie you tell you need to tell at least two more to cover your first lie. Before long, your fictional narrative takes on novel form, and you might as well write a book on it and get some financial benefit from it. It gets tiresome.
The straightforward way is hard, yes, because you have to confront things within yourself and within your most important relationships that are scary, and difficult, and sometimes you simply don’t have the words to describe what you are feeling inside, but something must come out to release the poisons we steep within us. It’s like lancing a boil – it hurts but it prevents long term infection and death, because you can debride the wound (whether it is physical, emotional, or spiritual) and cleanse it before trying to close it. God has invented the best way for us to live, we do not need to reinvent it, and in trying will initiate a path of self-destruction. Build upon the solid rock, not upon castles in the air. Blessings upon you.

08/14/2026

Proverbs 11:18 (KJV) - The wicked worketh a deceitful work: but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward.
We need to take care that our work is truly righteous. I have seen many in my life get caught up in self-righteousness, including myself on multiple occasions. Sometimes we want to do the right thing so much we ignore any evidence that our righteousness is not as righteous as we might imagine. Self-deceit can turn us from righteousness while simultaneously convincing us that we are absolutely in the right. Sometimes it is not just the “wicked” who work deceit but normal people, normally good people, caught up in momentary self-deceit. So, turn to God in everything. Pray unceasingly for guidance and wisdom, especially when you are sure that you are on the right track.
For wickedness can happen to us all in moments of weakness. And then when our souls start to perceive a wrong turning our fears flame up and cause us to refuse to closely examine what we are doing. We are sure that we are right because we are scared to really look under our motivations and examine them. We know righteousness prospers us where wickedness always turns in on itself and injures itself. We just don’t always understand where our righteousness went wrong. So, check often with the Spirit, with humility – am I still on the right track, am I still following what you want me to follow? There’s a reason Jesus compares us to lost sheep because we can wander off track easily when we don’t want to closely examine which direction we are going. There is a sure reward for righteousness, but our understanding of righteousness is rarely as sure as we believe it to be. Blessings upon you.

08/07/2026

Ecclesiastes 7:23-24 (KJV) - All this have I proved by wisdom: I said, I will be wise; but it was far from me. That which is far off, and exceeding deep, who can find it out?
Do not all of us seek to be wise? To want to ensure all our life’s decisions have been carefully measured out, weighed, and that we never acted other than with wisdom? Yet, we fall short, why? The truth is that no matter how deep our intellect is; no matter how diligently we study everything that we can lay our hands and minds upon, there are always depths below us. No matter how far and wide we search, there are always lands, and answers, beyond us. In my life I have heard people mention many times, “I never make assumptions.” Except…to say that you have never made an assumption, is an assumption in and of itself – for all of us make decisions in in our subconscious that we are not fully aware of, so the statement disproves itself.
We fall short of the glory of God, period. What carefully nurtured wisdom we have accumulated, is like taking a sand pail out to try and drain an ocean of understanding. We have no shot of doing this in our own power. The author of Ecclesiastes knows this, through painful experience. Everything he has done, and if the author truly is Solomon as many believe, then he has done a lot – everything he has done was meaningless without God. Without God’s wisdom we cannot navigate our blindness – we cannot see into those depths beyond our intellect or past the boundaries of our knowledge and there is always critical information we lack, that only God has. So, be wise, and seek ye first God. For when you find God and God is with you (Emmanuel), well then, you have access to wisdom you cannot achieve nor even imagine. Blessings upon you.

07/31/2026

Proverbs 11:17 (KJV) - The merciful man doeth good to his own soul: but he that is cruel troubleth his own flesh.
Have you ever taken a class in Physics and learned Newton’s Third Law of Motion, “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”? Long before Newton, God was saying the same thing, Sir Isaac was just first to recognize, and codify it into a physical law, at least as far as we who grew up in western civilization know. Except God was not talking of just physical motions, but emotional, intellectual, spiritual motions. Every attack you throw at someone, whether verbal or physical, will rebound upon you in some way. Jesus said, “Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.” So, when you feel like attacking something or someone, consider how much of your attack you can absorb, for surely at least some of it will rebound upon you.
I wish I could say that I have fully absorbed and internalized this wisdom, but I haven’t. I pray that you have, though I suspect that you haven’t. Hindsight is often 20/20 and we only see self-inflicted damage after we have launched our attack. Which is where Jesus’s forgiveness and healing come in. We pray for forgiveness for our rash actions. We seek change in ourselves that invests in what’s good so that we might, step by step, slowly, become more Christ-like. Accept the good of forgiveness, invest in more care and more love, and your soul will be nourished. It will be fed into the strength that can face ever-lasting life and ever-lasting love. Blessings upon you.

07/24/2026

Ecclesiastes 7:22 (KJV) - For oftentimes also thine own heart knoweth that thou thyself likewise hast cursed others.
I am not sure why this always happens while I am at the wheel of a vehicle, but often, someone does something stupid and I let fly my opinions of their stupidity into the vehicle’s cabin. Then, the Holy Spirit comes, and whispers, “Remember when you did something similar?” I suppose it’s because I am often driving alone, and so the unfiltered “me” comes out and I relax the constraints I impose upon my speech. But while I may feel like I am alone at that moment, God is always with me. I need to remember that more closely. The point is, when no one is watching, we often are more judgmental. But God is always watching…
So, I need to do better. Think before I speak, slow down the rush to judgement, seek patience in all things and in all actions. Jesus tells us that the mouth speaks what the heart is full of in Matthew 12 and also tells us in that same chapter that we will be held accountable for our words. So, how do we stop before we start with our mouths? The key is what you fill your heart with in the first place. Identify your danger areas – for me it is while driving, because I am often alone (therefore not on my best behavior) and I often am impatient to “get there.” Life is about the journey though we might worry about our final destination. Enjoy life as it comes and resolve to enjoy the people you interact with as they come into and out of your life. Easier to say than to do, I know, but happiness lies in treasuring the different things and people that the different seasons of life bring you. Live into the moment and don’t stress about destinations. Focus upon feeling right about everyone as much as you can, then the tongue will follow your heart as it should. Blessings upon you.

07/15/2026

Proverbs 11:16 (KJV) - A gracious woman retaineth honour: and strong men retain riches.
Where do grace and strength lie within you? For it is just as true that strong women can be well off and gracious men can embody honor. In fact, the two are inextricably intertwined. If you have strength without grace, someone, somewhere, sometime, will attack and defeat you and take what is yours. If you have no grace, you cannot form allies, form relationships, form peace in your life. And a life at constant war will eventually wear you down, no matter how strong a start you have. Likewise, grace without strength can lead to you becoming a doormat. You must have the strength of character to withstand the con artists of the world who long to take advantage of your good will.
Love requires both strength and grace. Fear of emotional heartbreak can only be overcome by those strong in courage, willing to risk emotional devastation, so that they might love. Jesus said the two greatest commandments were all about love, so our very purpose is all about love, which requires strength. So, too, love requires grace, for all fall short of the glory of God. If we cannot extend grace to others, well, do we deserve grace for ourselves? A just God says no. With what grace you have received you must reciprocate. But that does not mean you have to sacrifice everything to the locusts of this world. You need the strength to say no, when grace is attacked. And you need grace to be worthy of your strength. So, strive for love, through strengthening yourself in character and gracefully accepting and providing forgiveness as the Holy Spirit guides you. Blessings upon you.

07/10/2026

Ecclesiastes 7:21 (KJV) - Also take no heed unto all words that are spoken; lest thou hear thy servant curse thee:
When I was young, we had a saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” I think parents invented it to keep kids from fighting all the time, but I do not know for sure. In recent decades, with “cancel culture” there have been strong attempts to regulate other people’s speech. People have been fired or worse for saying something that a mob decided to take offense at and do their best to ruin that person’s life. This same mob will excuse actual violence committed by people, while loudly condemning the “micro-violence’’ of some spoken word. The truth is, none of us can completely rule our own tongues – which is why the Bible warns us over and over to watch what we say. A misspoken word can damage your life severely – the tongue is a blade that cuts it’s wielder as easily as it cuts its target.
And in this passage, we get the opposing reaction we must cultivate. Because our tongues will betray us, we must give grace for those whose tongues betray us. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us…
People will say bad things about you. They may mean it completely or they just might, in a moment of irritation, mean it for that moment. In either case, at some point, you will hear something bad about yourself. It’s the human condition. If you want to be around people you need to accept that they won’t always have the best opinion about you. So, listen with care, but, sometimes, also choose to not listen. The parent who hears their small child scream at them, “I hate you!” – well, sometimes its best to not listen when tempers flare and patience is short. For tomorrow, it might be you who needs someone to NOT listen to when your heart flares into words you regret. Blessings upon you.

07/03/2026

Proverbs 11:15 (KJV) - He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it: and he that hateth suretiship is sure.
Have you ever cosigned on a loan before? Perhaps you were a parent cosigning on your child’s student loans or first car loan or first mortgage. For a close family member, it may be OK to do this but know that it will put strains on your relationship and is best to avoid if possible. Money issues are among the top five reasons given for divorce so money will put a strain on any relationship. You might do it for family, but are you crazy enough to sign for someone you don’t know? Are you willing to be responsible for the actions of someone you don’t know? It’s hard enough when you are a supervisor to accept the responsibilities for people you know and have trained, but for someone you don’t’ know and have no responsibility towards, when it’s not smart.
So, vouching for someone is not something you should do UNLESS you know them VERY well and would trust them with your life and property, because you are trusting them when you vouch for them – which is what giving surety means. Jesus said let your yes be yes and your no be no. We have to know when we put our reputation, and assets, online and when we walk away. Should someone be pressing you to vouch for them or “help them with this loan” ask yourself how well you know this person. If you don’t know this person then walk away and probably stay away because if they are asking a stranger to go to bat for them, they probably aren’t the most reliable people. We all want people in our lives that we can completely depend upon, but until people prove to be dependable, take care in your dealings with them. Blessings upon you.

Address

614 NW M Highway
Centerview, MO
64019

Opening Hours

Wednesday 6pm - 8:30pm
Sunday 10am - 12:30pm

Telephone

+19137806434

Website

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