Category: Wesleyan Accent
Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ When Preachers Read
September 9, 2015
If all you read is Tweets and football scores, your perspective will be limited.
Andrew C. Thompson ~ A Pattern for Prayer (Holiday Archives)
September 7, 2015
It’s one thing to affirm the need for prayer, but it’s quite another to know what that looks like in practical life. We all follow routines and patterns in our lives — but few of us truly set those routines by our commitment to spiritual disciplines. We don’t live in a world very conducive to that sort of life, and it’s not clear that the church does a good job of teaching it.
Michelle Bauer ~ Connecting with God on the Journey
September 5, 2015
In the Old Testament book of Exodus we read the account of the Israelites journey out of slavery, through the desert and into the Promised Land. This journey provides the ultimate illustration for our spiritual journey and Moses as their leader, demonstrates that the disciplines provide the access point to God’s Presence.
Andy Stoddard ~ Are You John the Baptist?
September 3, 2015
In verses 4-8, we see the entrance of John the Baptist. Can’t you just picture him with this description. And you know what? He looks different, doesn’t he? Mark makes it clear to us that he is not like the other religious leaders. Not in his dress, not in his actions (baptism of repentance) and not in his message – the savior is coming.
Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ The Greatest Spiritual Need…
September 2, 2015
Are you feeling discouraged?
Depressed?
Defeated?
Frustrated?
Is everything a struggle?
Michael Smith ~ Remembering Katrina
August 31, 2015
It was dark as I gathered around a battery-operated radio with a mother and her two children. We were silent as we strained to listen to the reports. We heard the word “levy,” but I didn’t fully understand what that meant at the time. Sections of the city were being listed, and I didn’t understand what that meant either until she gasped. She said, “That’s me. My house is gone.” She held her children, the only things she had left.
It was like this for days.
Ken Loyer ~ Infant Baptism and Beyond: A Systematic Approach, Part II
Every year until the child participates in confirmation, in the days leading up to the child’s baptismal anniversary I send a letter marking the occasion. I also include an age-appropriate gift, like a children’s book. I have found that this is a good way to keep before the family and the child the meaning of baptism and to remind the parents of the promise they made to God during the baptism to do all they can to raise their child in the faith.
Mark Trotter ~ Night Moves
August 30, 2015
When I came back to this story of Jacob wrestling the stranger at the River Jabbok, I saw something that I had never noticed before. That is, Jacob is like Prometheus, in the Greek myth. Prometheus stole the fire from heaven and brought it down to human beings so that we could be like gods.
Tom Fuerst ~ Right Privilege
August 27, 2015
But this isn’t just something Christ did that was different than how God had previously revealed himself. Rather, God, from the beginning, has been challenging our understandings of the way the world is.
Talbot Davis ~ On the Up and Up: The Right Stuff
August 23, 2015
The “I” pronoun has disappeared in favor of “us” and “we.” Instead of asserting his rights – rights he was born into and rights he earned – the disappearing “I” pronoun shows he is instead relinquishing them. A psalm that could be about his personal religion instead becomes a song about our collective faith.