A Person-Centered Faith by Kim Reisman
Kim Reisman
May 17, 2017
At its most basic level, Christian faith is a centered, personal, relational response involving trust and obedience.
At its most basic level, Christian faith is a centered, personal, relational response involving trust and obedience.
Whether you’re reading this at home or at work, let me ask you a question. What sort of signal do you give your neighbors? Do you extend welcoming hospitality or have you constructed walls for your personal safe haven? Go Home Ranch My wife and I once hired a handyman to build a lattice fence that would enclose a giant
Human identity is formed as we navigate a process of separating and joining. We become most fully who we are, not when we reach independence, but when we understand our interdependence and recognize that we are both separate and connected to those around us.
From the seven depictions of Christ’s crucifixion story, to the mother of Jesus holding her infant son as she stretched out her arms to the weeping worshipper, the entire chapel was an invitation to see our sufferings – our very humanity – in light of the fact that neither Jesus nor Mary were exempt from suffering, pain, or death.
As Christians, we have a great deal to say about the meaning of suffering.
The Holy Spirit is present, active, and involved with all of creation in a life-giving way.
We live in a world where people need to meet Jesus. I guess that’s always been the case. There’s never been a time, in human history, where people have not needed that relationship with God. God created us for relationship with him. Everything in our life flows from that relationship. Here’s the thing. Once we have entered into relationship with
Christ’s self-giving love overcomes human hatred while at the same time creating space within Christ to receive estranged humanity.
A few days ago I visited a mercy ministry in another town as part of our preparation and planning for building a capacity-building ministry in our community. Talking with the director of the ministry I visited, I was reminded again of just how many beautiful souls there are in the world. I keep running into people who care deeply about
“The writer who contends we lost our soul when we adopted the mission statement inisists that, “love God, love neighbor” would be a better mission statement from a “Wesleyan” perspective. Would you not think that love for our neighbor compels us to share Christ with them, that doing justice and loving mercy is for the transformation of the world and
Every morning I start off with the Morning Office. It’s an online version of the morning and evening prayer service found in the Book of Common Prayer. The service has scripture readings, prayers, and other useful tools for focusing on God. Each day’s reading starts off with a hymn. And while I usually focus on one of the scripture readings,
On a cold winter’s evening, whether to toast marshmallows, chat with friends or curl up and read a book, many of us might enjoy the opportunity to cozy up to a brightly burning fire in the hearth. But how many of us depend upon a fireplace—excepting in dire emergencies—to heat up our homes? The reality is, despite whatever scouting skills
Unless we hold God’s will as Christ held his Father’s, our gifts corrupt. They grow into the most sinister of idols, more powerful than the Baals.
It may just be that we don’t make connections between our experience of being in relationship with Jesus Christ and the experience of the rest of the world through massive efforts and structures. It may just be that it’s about the intimacy of crossing a footbridge to meet another in the middle.
We are called to be “strong but gentle,” called to “strive to make the right prevail,” through the light of God who is with us, who does not abandon us midday, whose purpose will not fail or crumble, who trains us to serve “a higher will.”
For my shield this day A mighty power: The Holy Trinity! Affirming threeness, Confessing oneness, In the making of all Through love… The breastplate of St. Patrick features this refrain at both the beginning and the end of its poem. St. Patrick’s invocation of the Trinitarian Godhead—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—is emblematic of Celtic Christianity. St. Patrick may be famously
Politicians have interests from which Christians may be joyously free. Our faith family is not contained by state lines or party lines, by skin color or culture, by language or ethnicity.
We are free to love each other. And we are free to love others.
What a gift.
Chances are, you or someone you know gave or received a coloring book for adults in the last year. With titles as catchy as “Color Me Stress Free” or “The Art of Relaxation,” the coloring craze has swept the nation. Whether the book contains images of floral gardens, mandalas or other graphic patterns, the idea behind coloring therapy is to
“Jesus has a body but the Father and Spirit do not. Discuss.” One of my acquaintances posted this on social networking recently, provoking a number of responses. One person wondered if Christ had always had physical form. The discussion spun and doubled back, spiraled and swung. And, as it happens, it matters. Frequently theology – especially Trinitarian theology – is
Yet another acquaintance lost his life to depression over the holidays. Such loss leaves everyone devastated on multiple levels. When devastations like suicide drop into our lives, we’re left with far more questions than answers, not to mention the guilt and so often, such a sense of powerlessness. Stretching to make sense of a tragic event, we tend to grab
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