Wesleyan Accent
Talbot Davis ~ Could You Give Up Porn for Lent? A Pastoral Perspective on Life Change
March 18, 2015
The rise of the internet has created a perfect storm for growing numbers of men to become addicted. It is available. It is anonymous. I suspect no other generation of men – or their pastors – had such a collision of forces that are the same time both irresistible and destructive.
Michael Smith ~ Sister Winter
March 16, 2015
For some reason God seems to do the best character development work when we are in the wilderness. Throughout the biblical text we see people out in the wilderness or in the “wintertime” of their spiritual lives. It is often here that God decides to do something new. “Now my heart is returned to sister winter,” as singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens describes it.
Talbot Davis ~ Hidden Heroes: The Epic Fail Hero
March 14, 2015
But you need both. A Paul and a Peter. Someone who will confront and another who will comfort. It takes that balance of truth and grace to get someone to move beyond their epic fail and into effective service.
Maxie Dunnam ~ Prayer and the Shaping Power of the Indwelling Christ
March 12, 2015
We allow grace to operate in our lives by allowing Christ to be alive in us. We affirm the living Christ. Freedom and joy in the Christian life depend on this. Christ is alive today. He is a now reality. This reality must become personal: Christ is alive in me.
Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ A Woman’s Voice Can Usher in the Kingdom of God
March 11, 2015
A woman’s voice can usher in the Kingdom of God – whether or not we hear it. How many women have gone unheard?
Carrie Carter ~ Backwards Lent
March 9, 2015
Taking a towel. Jesus took something on in order to serve others.
That’s how I have chosen to approach Lent this year. Backwards. Taking on, instead of giving up.
Steve Beard ~ Take My Hand: The Gospel and the Blues
March 7, 2015
It was in the forsakenness of that hour that Dorsey chipped away at the piano and wrote, “Precious Lord, take my hand …” In the sorrow of the desolation and flood of his loss, the song that inspired Dr. King was the dove that Dorsey released in search of dry land, the flight of hope. It was his blues: “I am tired, I am weak, I am worn.” It was his gospel: “Lead me on, let me stand.”
Tammie Grimm ~ Warming the Soul with Celtic Traditions
March 5, 2015
This morning, as I kindle the fire upon my hearth, I pray the flame of God’s love may burn in my heart, and the heart of all I meet today.
Aaron Perry ~ Deathless Death: Take Me to Church
March 4, 2015
Hozier believes that something in you dies when you give yourself in the human act of sex. Yet when there is a kind of relationship, this death must go both ways. The lover becomes not just the one who gives their life, but the one who takes the other’s life. This mutual deathless death is the closest you get to love and happiness on the sex-as-happiness path.
Andrew C. Thompson ~ A Pattern for Prayer
March 2, 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 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. So here I’d like to offer a pattern for prayer that can help any Christian begin to build a rhythm of prayer into daily life.