I love accents! I could listen to someone from Boston say “Harvard” all day. I could hear someone from England say “Cheers” and never cease to be intrigued. Accents are interesting to people who speak the same language because they highlight real difference (someone sounds truly different, or I sound truly different to them) but there is also a meaningful
I‘m a Wesleyan by choice, though I have a great legacy of Christian experience from other traditions. My grandfather, Lewis Dunnam, was a Freewill Baptist preacher – the closest to a “circuit rider” we have in our family. He “walked” his circuit in rural Mississippi. I grew up in Southern and Missionary Baptist churches, but experienced throughout my childhood and
One of the great blessings in life is to celebrate the ways that God works and moves. Sometimes, in our bid to stay humble, we can forget to give testimony to what God has done. Now, we do want to be careful, making sure that God gets the glory for whatever good happens in life, but we need to stop
“I want to look confident but not come off as aggressive or too assertive – that just won’t do!” How many of us have thought that when preparing for a public presentation, whether it be a workshop we lead for our peers, a meeting with other leaders or even a job interview? We want to look professional, neat and tidy,
To be a follower is not a valued characteristic in our culture, is it? If someone asked us if we wanted our children to grow up to be followers or leaders, I’m guessing most of us would say leaders. When we hire or promote someone at work are we looking for leaders or followers? But have you ever heard of
At one level, Melissa and I are the ideal first-time guests. And yet, we have been surprised at how difficult it has been to find deep and nurturing community in the local church. We have often been discouraged, because our initial strategy for finding new community when we have moved has been to try to quickly plug in to a
Worm Theology is probably a good moniker for such belief. It imprisons humanity in this notion that our sin has made us worthless. It fetters us to the falsity that the evil within us has so completely broken us that we literally have no value.
It sounds pious. It sounds like a good understanding of the holy character of God
Anyway, several months ago I was in one of these meetings – probably 40 people there – admiring the raw spirituality of the environment, when during the sharing time a man says, “We don’t have a drinking PROBLEM. We have a drinking SOLUTION. We’ve got all kinds of problems – marriage, parents, self-esteem, and money – and what we
One of the best things in the world that we can do is know ourselves. Know our strengths. Know our weaknesses. There’s an old saying – know thyself. That’s a good thing. Because when we know ourselves, we know what to be on the lookout for. What are things that could cause us trouble. What are the things in our
The idea of the future has a mysterious quality to it because it is always beyond us, in one sense not yet fulfilled. As you look ahead, what do you anticipate about the future? What concerns or fears do you have? Do you think that in the midst of the inevitable uncertainty regarding various aspects of our future, there is
To say yes is to listen when another person is hurting or needs to process a current life crisis.
To say and is to add a word of encouragement, consolation, or solidarity. Eventually trust is earned as each person allows themselves to be more and more vulnerable when more of their life is shared and accepted. These real and open
And as they were in conversation, all I could see was the blurriness of death, being detached from this world and reaching the light of the union with the Creator.
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