Engaging with Today Like Jesus by Otis T. McMillan
Otis McMillan
September 23, 2019
“Today, patience is one of the greatest gifts we can give others.”
“Today, patience is one of the greatest gifts we can give others.”
Isn’t it true that life will not always turn out the way you want? Maybe you don’t get the promotion you think you deserve or you are struggling with your health. Maybe your marriage doesn’t turn out the way you imagined even though you feel you have worked hard for it and done everything you possibly can. The truth is that we
I grew up in a faith community where abuse was not spoken of, where sex was a taboo topic in any context. So as one can imagine, my understanding of sexual abuse was quite simplistic well into adulthood. How could a man or woman of God do such horrific things? I confess that it was easy to feel smug
It is with great joy and thanksgiving that we celebrate Kim Reisman’s 5th anniversary as Executive Director of WME. What a blessing she has been to our mission and ministry! God has used her in marvelous ways to continue the witness and work of WME. Her passion for Christ, her love for people, her vision, teaching, preaching and organizational gifts
“We are all being formed by something.”
C.S. Lewis argued that before writing a story, two elements must be considered: desire and duty. The story begins with the Author’s desire. Something captures the author that he or she needs to get out. Before the writing process begins, however, the story should be considered for its value as well. So consider the would-be storywriter from two angles: the
How do we know when an organization isn’t healthy?
People sometimes ask me for advice on how to get more young adults to come to church. Frequently, their church is warm and friendly, but is made of up older and/or elderly adults. They sometimes speak passionately about their desire to see their church not die off as members age. These conversations usually occur with church leaders in parts of
Ask the Spirit to show you what God sees when he looks at you. God instructed Samuel to look past appearances and directly into David’s heart. What did Samuel see when he did this? How would you describe your heart to someone who was interested in knowing you at that level?
“Jesus is not limited by the length of time you have been in your condition nor by the severity of the situation you face. Once he puts his hand on you, you will be set free.”
“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” – Matthew 5:6 The proper appetite is required to be filled: am I hungry enough? With the disciples sitting at the feet of Jesus, he shared with them key points of his teachings. In this verse, Jesus declares that those that hunger and thirst for
What do you do when a phone freezes, stops working, or is unresponsive? You toss it to the ground, step on it really hard, and make sure is completely crashed, right? Well, probably not. Most likely you do what most of us have done: we reset our phones to reactivate its functions, we don’t discard it. Depending on how bad
Churches have personalities, expressed through their organization, Christian education
processes, preaching, and worship. Each can have strengths and challenges, but the diversity is reflective of the differences we see in people, including the
Apostles.
Instead of focusing on which
organizational structure or form of worship we prefer, we need to ask if our church is manifesting Christ
I have often thought when hearing of another nose-dive from ministry, “not him?” but underlying that has been a naive attitude that has assumed that it won’t ever be me.
Christmas is almost here! Thinking backing over the last few weeks, when have you felt the most peaceful? When have you felt the most stress or anxiety? As you think ahead to the coming week, what are you looking forward to? What, if anything, are you dreading? Offer those things into God’s care.
Yesterday was the third Sunday of Advent, called Gaudete Sunday; “gaudete” is Latin for “rejoice.” Even a cursory reading of the Bible reveals that joy and rejoicing are an inevitable overflow in the lives of people who have understood and experienced God at work in their lives.
As good as the story of Esther is, however, it presents us with a problem: God is absent. Unlike other Old Testament stories, where we read of God appearing to Abraham or working behind the scenes to foil the plans of the Pharaoh, the story of Esther never mentions God. Rather, the characters in Esther appear to be acting on
We live in a culture that wants to move faster and faster still. But, is faster always better? There are some things about going slow that you cannot get when you are moving fast. When I was serving as a youth minister, I took the youth group hiking to the top of a small mountain. At the end of the
At a time in my life when things were not like I wanted, I sat in a restaurant booth across from a friend as tears streamed down my face explaining how everything was going wrong. The holidays were around the corner. I was short on cash. I was helping other people but no one asked me if I needed help.
I’m a historian by training. It is what I do and how I think. This training orients my own spiritual formation as well. I think about the past as a way to make sense of God’s faithfulness and to consider my Christian duty as well as others’. Thinking like a historian tends to consider how we narrate our stories and
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