Category: Wesleyan Accent
Kevin Watson ~ Christian Perfection: Problem or Promise?
September 22, 2014
“Sanctification is not about something that I either have to do to make myself better, or for which I have to feel guilty about not being good enough. It is a ‘work of God’s grace.’ Entire sanctification is really nothing more than
God’s grace freeing us from everything that has kept us chained to sin and death. The Triune God has given his children everything they need to live the kind of life for which they were created, in this life. And this is not only for spiritual elites or super Christians.”
Maxie Dunnam ~ Prayer and Fasting: Embracing Voluntary Weakness
September 18, 2014
Fasting is more than denying ourselves food. It is choosing to act out, by temporarily denying ourselves food, that we do not live by bread alone. We are completely dependent upon God, and we deliberately choose voluntary weakness. We become identifiably humble in the face of the problems with which we are dealing. We admit to each other, and primarily to God: only you can get us through this “mess.”
Ken Loyer ~ Holy Communion: Celebrating God with Us, Part 1
September 17, 2014
The more Christians link Communion with spiritual formation and daily faith practice, the more likely the church will be invigorated and empowered to carry out its missional mandate to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Through the service of Communion, the church remembers and celebrates the presence of God with us.
Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Truth, Beauty & Tragedy: How to Be Happy
September 15, 2014
We humans can only be happy when we face the reality of evil. We can’t be happy without the truth. Despite being surrounded by the truth of ugly facts – genocide or beheadings or crowded refugee camps or grotesquely contagious diseases – we have the inner impulse to reach also for the truth of reality, of existence, the Truth that transcends current events, that tunes the music of the spheres and absorbs everything into the unity that is Triune love.
Carolyn Moore ~ Rise Up!
September 13, 2014
This is the power of resurrection. Isaiah says, “see, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.”
This is the heart of God for his people. Jesus wants to make a river run through the wasteland of your life, because when the Spirit flows people get raised and get filled and get healed and get sober and their wastelands get soaked. A new thing!
We’ve seen a spiritual resurrection in Paul and a “fresh start” resurrection in Aeneas and now we’re about to see the full power of God come to rest over death…In Acts 9:37-38 we read, “about that time Tabitha became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. When the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, ‘Please come at once!’…
Matthew Sigler ~ Knowing What We Have: The Methodist Liturgical Heritage, Part II
September 11, 2014
At issue was the question of what made Methodist worship distinctly Methodist. Drawing from Wesley’s example, Summers argued that form and freedom should go hand in hand in Methodist worship. Even today these disagreements over what makes Methodist worship “Methodist” continue. For all the talk over “high” and “low” church; “spirit-led” and “ordered;” or “contemporary” and “traditional”—whatever the current iteration of the debate—we might do well to take a page from Wesley and Summers who both understood that form and freedom are two sides of the same coin for Methodists.
Cole Bodkin ~ The Parable-Life
September 10, 2014
Jesus often did things that drew – or repelled – people towards or away from himself. Once he grabbed their attention, Jesus would frequently respond with parables. That Jesus spoke in parables is highly significant. Jesus didn’t speak theological jargon; one of his primary forms of communication was…parables. He acted in highly symbolic fashion, eliciting questions, to which he told strange, cryptic stories about how God’s dominion was making its impact on earth.
Michael Smith ~ Birthing A Church
September 8, 2014
As pastors we have to understand that as we serve our church, it will begin to look like us. Our shared life will rub off on each other. We will take on the DNA of that local church body and always carry it with us. And part of who we are will always stay with them. We are related after all, and we will start to look like each other.
Talbot Davis ~ Doubt’s Big Bang
September 6, 2014
I have known for several years that on some level behavior precedes doubt.
In other words, we don’t arrive at our shadow of doubt by objective analysis of relevant facts; instead, most of us begin to act a certain way and then circle back around and develop some doubts to substantiate that behavior.
We don’t think our way into doubting. We (mis)behave our way into it.
Jerry Walls ~ C.S. Lewis and the Pious Calvinist Confusions of John Piper
September 4, 2014
This lecture on C.S. Lewis and Calvinism was given by Jerry Walls at Azusa Pacific University on March 28, 2014.