The Beautiful Gate by Kim Reisman
Kim Reisman
March 19, 2014
Why did they leave him at the gate? Why not take him all the way in? Did they not understand that he had spiritual needs as well?
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Why did they leave him at the gate? Why not take him all the way in? Did they not understand that he had spiritual needs as well?
Wesley leads us to the heart of Lent and to the heart of every day of seeking the fullness of life in Christ: such a longing to please our Lord that we want the Holy Spirit to check us at the first sense of pride, wrong desire, or the wandering will — anything, that is, that might “quench the kindling
“The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” The Mission Statement of the United Methodist Church. I am an ordained United Methodist clergy and I have a confession to make. I have a love-hate relationship with the United Methodist mission statement. As a Wesleyan, I love it because it is
On Ash Wednesday, we recall through word and ritual, and even rejoice in, the fact that the Lord our God can bring new life out of the ashes of our brokenness.
A celebration of Easter without a prior descent into the grave is dishonest and naïve, just as observing Lent without the uncompromising proclamation of the Resurrection is hopeless.
Compassion comes from a deliberate identification with another person until we see things as he sees them, and feel things as she feels them. That’s the place to which God seeks to bring all of us.
Around the time the Methodist revival in England completed its first decade, John Wesley penned an essay called A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists. His aim is to explain the Methodist movement to the larger world, which he does by describing the various internal components of the revival that had developed during Methodism’s first ten years. One of
I’m a Yankee. Specifically, I was born in central Michigan, where the air is scented with pine needles and damp sand. I live in northeastern Texas – a region known for its own Piney Woods – but a world away from the cornfields of the Midwest, where I grew up. It may seem like a small question, but how does
I frequently lead workshops on prayer, which I always find kind of odd because I’ve never felt myself to be much of an expert on that kind of thing. Prayer is hard work for me; it’s meaningful, but it’s hard. During my workshops I always focus at some point on intercessory prayer – prayer for needs beyond our own –
Charles Wesley wrote songs for sinners. For those who were lost in sin, his hymns promised salvation, and for those who had come to Christ they were hymns that celebrated the day when it happened… These hymns are as true as ever and it is only our spiritual and doctrinal naivete that keeps us from seeing it.
Acts 17:16-34 contains Paul’s message to the Athenians at the Areopagus. Athens was considered the intellectual capital of the world. It was home to Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Paul came to Athens during his second mission trip, seeking refuge. Earlier, he had been run out of Thessalonica by the synagogue crowd. He found a more congenial reception in Beroea, until
The good news is that we already have a basic blueprint for how to help people embrace faith in Jesus and become his apprentices. Methodist discipline, or the method that gave Methodism its name, was focused on helping people become deeply committed Christians, to become mature followers of Jesus Christ … The biggest challenge contemporary Wesleyans may face is our
This is a portion of the sermon preached on December 27, 2013, at the funeral service for Bishop McAlilly’s nephew Gale Stauffer, who was killed in the line of duty December 23, serving on the Police Force of the city of Tupelo, Mississippi. … little did we know that on this day of days, we would find ourselves moving so
Prevenient grace does not depend on any power or merit in man; no, not in any degree, neither in whole, nor in part. It does not in any wise depend either on the good works or righteousness of the receiver; not on anything he has done or anything he is. It does not depend on his endeavors. It does not
I received an e-mail from a pastor in Tennessee a few days ago posing this question: A church member asked me to recommend a biography on John Wesley, and I didn’t know what to suggest. Wondering if you could suggest something? That’s not an infrequent request to get for a seminary professor who teaches Methodist history. When I get an
I was thirty-two years old when a woman took my advice on how to die. Sitting in her low living room banked with windows that overlooked butterfly-laden bushes, I watched her shallow breaths. She had lost strength and energy: her frame seemed diminished, as if her soul were clinging to her body by mere tendrils. While disease sapped her vitality,
The weight of Christian worship history testifies that the Sunday service is primarily a gathering of, and for, the faithful. This is not to say that we shouldn’t consider how our worship services can best speak in the language of our local contexts. It isn’t to say that we shouldn’t consider if our gatherings are marked with radical hospitality and
Wesley knew how to be abased and how to abound. He intended, as did his brother John, to live all of life under God’s hand, whatever the circumstances of any given day.
Though it may seem to be the most difficult to define of the three, Wesley insists on including spirit with doctrine and discipline because right doctrine (belief) and right discipline (practice) are not enough in themselves.
There is a phrase in Wesleyan theology that holds the key to understanding most everything about present salvation. The phrase is “holiness of heart and life.” This is one of those terms that seems simple at first glance and yet is packed with meaning on multiple levels. It’s also a term worth exploring, and I want to explore it here.
Dear Friends of World Methodist Evangelism, World Methodist Evangelism has been blessed with strong leadership since its inception. Sir Alan Walker of Australia, provided inspired early direction (1978-1988), launching the first International Christian Youth Conference on Evangelism – now known as Metanoia – in 1980. In 1989, Dr. H. Eddie Fox became WME’s first full-time Executive Director and significantly expanded
In the Philippines, our Christmas season starts on September 1 and ends around the second week of January the following year. Being a predominantly Catholic country, Christmas decorations are usually taken down after “Three Kings”, referring to when the Wise Men visited Jesus at the house and brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh as narrated in the Gospel of
There are some experiences or encounters that are so solidly lodged in our memory they continue to invade our consciousness – to haunt us – to help us or to hinder our Christian walk, to call and challenge us to be more than we are. John Birkbeck is a person around whom for me a whole cluster of memories is
In my two previous articles (read part 1 here and part 2 here) we focused on two of the big truths the three wise men can teach us. One, only the wise know their wisdom is incomplete and limited. Two, the wise men not only know their wisdom is incomplete they know they can’t save themselves. Those who are wise always know that their wisdom
In our world today, we embrace each other for so many reasons – celebration, greeting, sadness, grief, joy, affection, good-bye, and more. An embrace is a beautiful symbol of our human connection. My favorite version is when my sweet granddaughter sees me and runs into my arms. Something passes between us in an embrace, something unspoken, yet deeply real and
In my last article, I began reflecting on the Three Wise Men in the Christmas story. I began by insisting only the wise know their wisdom is incomplete and limited. These wise men had journeyed along a difficult path, looking for a king, using the very best science they knew, following a star. But somehow, along the way, their guidance
It’s a tradition in my family to have a formal “mother/child” photograph made of each child when they’re between three and six months old. When I was about six months old, my mother posed with me in a remarkable photo which my parents’ still have. It’s remarkable not because it’s of me, but because my mother and I are posed
Two men were sitting together on an airplane, one an astronomer, the other a theologian. After a while each began to share his understanding of the other’s discipline. The astronomer said, “I believe that all religion can be summed up in the phrase, ‘Jesus Loves Me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.’” The theologian, somewhat miffed at this simplistic
When I was in my early twenties, I had a mysterious back injury that was debilitating. Several visits to various doctors revealed a problem in my spine that was pinching the nerves to my legs. The medical imaging showed an injury so bad, how it got there was a mystery. It was something usually seen in patients who had severe
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“Pasko” is the Filipino term for Christmas. In the Philippines, the Christmas celebration begins as soon as the calendar enters the “-ber months.” Christmas is a time for Filipinos to express their love for God and family, relationships, creativity, and food. When the “-ber months” begin, the streets light up with the traditional Filipino Christmas décor called the parol—beautiful lanterns
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Last summer, the musician Ben Rector released a single, “Wreck.” The premise of the song was that the person he was singing to had wrecked his world “in a beautiful way.” It was through this song that I was introduced to a phrase I hadn’t heard before, but isn’t original to Rector: “Healthy things grow and growing things change.” As
When I was a little girl, decorating the Christmas tree was a family ritual my parents and I looked forward to every year. We’d crack some Christmas tunes on the stereo CD player we had in our living room – yes, I feel old whenever I remember I actually used one of those – and we’d hang all kinds of
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When Nathaniel Hawthorne came home in utter despair and failure after losing his job in the Customs House, his wife responded, “Now you can write that book you have always wanted to write.” Under that kind of uplifting support, Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter, one of the greatest pieces of literature the world has ever known. The truth is there