The danger of our silence is that if we ignore the subject of money, both the mission of the Kingdom of God and the spirituality of God’s people will ultimately be impoverished.
If we really believe that in Christ there is no male or female, it should trouble us deeply that so many men are missing from our midst.
Hypermobility. Transience. Individualism. Consumerism. Nationalism. Add to those descriptors the second half of the great commandment: Love your neighbor as yourself. And what do you get? Helicopter love. Helicopter Love* A helicopter love, or lifestyle, is one in which a person has a place to live (a safe haven), but they hop into a virtual helicopter to fly to the various
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must needs be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass, they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that though they may
Advent reminds us that Christmas is not a sentimental, consumerist, family-friendly holiday, but is a season of radical political subversion, the downfall of the mighty, and an upturning of the hierarchies of the world. Seeing Christmas in fresh perspective begins with participating in the biblical narrative of God’s preferential option for the poor, forgotten, and imperfect.
The brilliance of the World Methodist Conference is still shifting through my mind, light through a suncatcher hanging on a window. The days in Houston were color, sound, faces, laughter, weeping, worship, intensity, frustration, revelation. I met people and forgot names. I met people and remembered names. I saw textiles woven with Methodist patterns, saris shimmering, archbishop caps velvety and
What neighborhood, out of all the ones you’ve lived in, has been your favorite? Was it a quiet small town street lined with tall trees? Was it a bustling corner of a large, noisy city? Was it a distant, rural farm, the air scratched with the clucking of chickens? Was it a small cottage on the edge of the windy
Are you content to have unfulfilled needs in your life? Most of us aren’t. We want enough for today, plus extra stored away for the future. Yet our longing for more than enough is often limited to what we can see and touch. Jesus told us that these things would never satisfy. He taught that only God can fulfill our
But such things apply to Joy, if at all, in a far diminished way. I sing the Lord’s Prayer to her, but she’ll never learn to pray. We’ll bring her to church, but she’ll never learn the basics of the faith. We’ll take care of her physically, but to what extent can we really meet her spiritual needs?
Recently Wesleyan Accent spoke with Dr. Aaron Perry on Leadership in the Wesleyan Way, a volume he edited with Dr. Bryan Easley. Wesleyan Accent: This summer, you and Bryan Easley published a 450-page collection of essays on “Leadership the Wesleyan Way: An Anthology for Forming Leaders in Wesleyan Thought and Practice.” It’s been praised by notable voices like Dr. Jo
It is better to stop worrying about the results of our evangelizing and instead worry about whether we have truly made the gospel known in our relationships with others.
Deep and authentic faith is meaningful; but can be costly, challenging, even frightening.
What is the better place? As seen in the last post, the three most popular sketches of the Christian “better place”—heaven-centered, human-centered, and world-centered—have been various soteriological attempts to depict both our hope and mission. (Soteriology, as you may remember, refers in theology to the theology of salvation.) However, as John C. Nugent argues in his book Endangered Gospel: How Fixing the World
If you reflect on your spiritual walk, how do Peter’s various responses to Jesus resonate with your experience?
There are some things that I know I should believe with my head, but I struggle because I don’t experience them in my heart.
Go to the Limits of Your Longing -Rainer Maria Rilke God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame and make big shadows
Yet, for our faith to be real, for it to be authentic, we must risk moving out of the shadows. So the question is, how close to the fire will we get?
Have you ever felt really badly about something you’ve done wrong? Have you ever in some way harmed another person or harmed your walk with God? Have you ever done something that you just know you should not have done, and then you realize it. And wow. You feel terrible. You just feel awful. You want to make it right.
They were baptized, they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, they were discipled, and they shared meals and fellowship.
Airborne illness. War. Overpopulation. Mass chaos. Environmental disaster. Oppressive dictators. All of these – and more – are cataclysmic triggers for a dystopian society. If you’re catching up with American publishing, television, and film, the genre of “dystopia” has flooded the entertainment industry. For many, it’s becoming a little repetitive and mundane; but like it or not, people are fascinated,
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