People have different ways of approaching reality. Some are analytical, reasoned, and logical. That’s not me. Not that I can’t be analytical, reasoned and logical. I can, but those are deliberate disciplines that I practice in contrast to my instinctive way of approaching the world, which is through my feelings. I’m just a feeling kind of person. Maybe too much
Recently Wesleyan Accent spoke with Rev. Omar Al-Rikabi, an occasional Wesleyan Accent contributor and author of The Advent Mission, a new Christmastime devotional from Seedbed Publishing. Wesleyan Accent:Why the Advent “mission”? Is this about missions? Global missionaries? Do I have to give money? Hey, is this a sneaky way for churches to take an extra offering? Omar Al-Rikabi: I think it
It can be frustrating to do right. It can be hard to be faithful and to follow God, especially when you see so many others that, in your mind, are not. We see the wickedness. The greed. All the things that others are doing wrong. It can be easy to give up, to say, “why keep trying?” Why should I
“Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.” – Proverbs 11:14 Seek godly counsel; it will provide safety. The wisdom of others can keep you from falling. Decisions made today have the potential to impact many tomorrows. Wisdom instructs us to seek the godly counsel of others. Their insight can provide the
If you have ever been lost, you know the feeling – one minute you are fine and the next you realize you have no idea where you are or how to get back. The Bible uses the metaphor of being lost to help us to understand what it is like to be far from God. If you are a follower
The word “relational” gets thrown around a great deal when discussing evangelism. Just what that means deserves a closer examination. Allow me to illustrate one way I have in mind. I had many questions about faith before I made a decision to follow Jesus in my early 20s. One of the things that compelled me to become a disciple of
My first appointment out of seminary was the hardest appointment that I’ve ever had. It wasn’t because the people were hard to pastor: they were some of the sweetest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of serving. It wasn’t because the church was located in a bad place: it was out in the country, a beautiful church and beautiful parsonage.
The bottoms of your shoes tell a tale. Examine them: the soles are worn down on the inside or the outside, at the front or at the back. They show how you walk. They show what you compensate for. They show the way your foot moves as you stride. And as you wear them, the sole of your shoe begins
Why do we argue? Is it so that we can win a competition, and feel the adrenaline rush of victory? Is it to make another person feel ashamed of themselves? Is it to make sure other people know what we support, or don’t support? Is it because if we don’t, the other side will be the only ones talking? Facebook,
What’s stronger: wood or steel? You don’t even have to think about it, do you? Steel is a stronger construction material than wood. Steel is harder than wood, so of course, it’s the stronger of the two. But wait… My husband and I were hiking at Tallulah Gorge, and I stopped to take this photo. A steel cable that once held up
When I was in my early twenties, I was really good at softball. I could play defense, run reasonably well, and hit for power. I got better because I had a coach, Gordon, who watched me play and gave me pointers. As a result, I positioned myself intentionally at third base depending on the batter. I chose a heavier bat
Chera, my wife, was glaring at me with the type of fire normally reserved for people who tell her Christmas music should wait till after Thanksgiving. “God is good,” she said. I nodded, more than slightly annoyed. “Say it,” still glaring. “God is good,” I half-heartedly indulged her. And then what I knew was coming. “Say it like you mean
Over lunch recently, a ministerial colleague and I were discussing the various ways local churches seek to use social media to promote their ministry. He and I have served in a variety of contexts, and we observed that similar conversations seem to happen in each situation: some people strongly feel that putting a great deal of time and energy into a catchy social media campaign will cure many of the ills of church. Properly
In the past, I’ve talked about reset as the ability to embrace and move into the new things that God has for us by not allowing the hurts of the past to hold us back. We can’t change the facts of the past, but we can change how we feel about them and how we allow them to affect us
I’ve never been pregnant. I watched my wife, a complete champion, bear three children with heroic efforts. Bearing a child means to carry the child through pregnancy to birth, when the child is born. Leading up to the birth, there are contractions. Contractions prepare the body to deliver the baby by shortening uterine muscles and dilating the cervix. As the uterus
The statement on the website shouted loudly and clearly what many people instinctively know if they let themselves notice it: The Key to Relieving Pain Is Fixing Our Misalignment. I was visiting a website that sells therapeutic insoles for people with aching feet. The promises of pain relief were backed up by “Science” and a compelling founder’s story from a man who just wanted his little boy to
“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” – Matthew 5:6 The proper appetite is required to be filled: am I hungry enough? With the disciples sitting at the feet of Jesus, he shared with them key points of his teachings. In this verse, Jesus declares that those that hunger and thirst for
What do you do when a phone freezes, stops working, or is unresponsive? You toss it to the ground, step on it really hard, and make sure is completely crashed, right? Well, probably not. Most likely you do what most of us have done: we reset our phones to reactivate its functions, we don’t discard it. Depending on how bad
Churches have personalities, expressed through their organization, Christian education
processes, preaching, and worship. Each can have strengths and challenges, but the diversity is reflective of the differences we see in people, including the
Apostles.
Instead of focusing on which
organizational structure or form of worship we prefer, we need to ask if our church is manifesting Christ
I have often thought when hearing of another nose-dive from ministry, “not him?” but underlying that has been a naive attitude that has assumed that it won’t ever be me.
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