“I hope you’ll always remember that God loves you so much—more than I can even say—and has a wonderful plan for your life. We at the Church are here to help you discover the special life that God made you to live.”
We carry our great preachers around in the corners of our soul. They wait there to surprise us. They wait there to revive us.
Discussions about marriage, divorce and issues of human sexuality are not new. What is new is our unpreparedness for the current questions being asked.
Wisdom is not just an intelligence bomb that God drops on us one day when we get our first gray hair. It’s not an intellectual realization that hits us one day simply because we’re aged. We’ve all known older folks who are foolish. No, wisdom has less to do with gray hair and more to do with the experience of
You can look at some of the big picture issues of location and context and fear within Mark 5:1-19. Today I want to look at little bit a the people involved in this story: Jesus Heals the Gerasene Demoniac They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when he had stepped out
The first name given in creation was Adam. It means humanity.
The Scripture story tells us that God, through Jesus Christ, created all of humanity in his image and breathed into us the breath of life.
I thought of Adam when I saw the first hashtag given to Aylan’s story: Humanity Washed Ashore.
I can still see them. More than that, I can still sense them: The images from the first horror movie I encountered, unwittingly, at five or six years of age. This is more than a little disconcerting considering the images are rooted in the organ with which I make life’s major decisions. My brain is shaped, literally, with these images.
“Conduct yourselves wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone.” Colossians 4:5-6 “Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed.
“What’s that song you’re humming?” my five-year-old asked as we sat parked in the ATM line. “I’m gonna feast at the table of the Lord…” I sang more loudly. “FEAST? What does THAT mean?” “It means to eat a of really nice food as a celebration, like a party,” came my made-up-on-the-spot-parenting reply. What does it mean to feast at the
He says that “in Christ,” through what Christ has done for us in his life, death and resurrection, through his empowering Spirit and inspiring example and our relationship with Christ, God is recreating, restoring us to what he originally intended us to be. The Greek word that Paul uses literally means a “masterpiece.”
Have you ever had a near-drowning experience? I have. I don’t remember when, but I’d guess I was between the ages of seven and nine. I don’t remember the circumstances, except that I was in over my head. Literally. What I can remember is the feeling of not being able to breathe and the panic that completely took over any
I’m learning what pastors around the globe know so well: that Christmas Is Different For Pastors. The same truth reverberates – Emmanuel, God With Us. It has, however, sunk in that this year I work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and not only work, but serve to fashion a threshold between tired hungry human hearts and the Trinity. The Advent
Let’s just say I know a thing or two about distraction. In the past 12 months, three of our four family members were stricken with flu on Christmas Day, we celebrated our childrens’ first and fourth birthdays, we went on a two-week multi-state road trip visiting family and friends with said small children, my husband suffered chronic migraines so far
“Do it even if you don’t feel like it, even if you don’t believe, or can’t imagine, that the promise that is offered can come to you. Get up and follow it anyway, because you are a person of faith, and you believe that what is real is not only the way you feel now, but the promise offered to
” In essence our children aren’t disciples because we aren’t disciples. We’re more focused on our kids’ happiness and success than we are on their discipleship.”
“Regardless of how I have spent, squandered, or invested my time, I still have the wonderful gift of this set of 24 hours. Regardless of how I spent “yesterday,” I still have today. I can waste today, by regretting yesterday, or yearning for tomorrow. I can spend the day selfishly on myself, or investing in others.”
“How is memory significant for us as God’s people? Why is it important for us to remember, and what specifically should we remember most?”
“We are what we think. We are transformed by the renewal of our minds. So study is a necessary discipline for spiritual growth.”
Revelation. Not of the contents of a carefully wrapped box in your childhood home, hidden from view until enterprising siblings helped you spy out the contents (or were you one of the professional tape-peelers who could lift a flap of wrapping paper without leaving a trace?). Not of a painful holiday discovery, realizing your daughter has an eating disorder or
“In Advent we are waiting for the return of Jesus the Christ, the coming King. In Advent, we anticipate the return of Christ. Advent is about the future, the end, the “Christ shall come again in final victory” part of our faith. And so in Advent, we practice waiting. We remind ourselves that Jesus is coming back and that we
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