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
Many families enjoy re-telling the events that happened around the time that someone was born – the mad dash to the hospital, nervous pacing in the waiting room, funny names that your parents almost gave you. Luke begins his gospel by telling the story surrounding Jesus’ birth. Did you know that Jesus was born next to animals? That’s unusual isn’t
Scripture Focus: A good tree can’t produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. A tree is identified by its fruit. Figs are never gathered from thornbushes, and grapes are not picked from bramble bushes. A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the
In my last three articles I have discussed assurance and sanctification. These aspects of salvation lead us to think about what separates a Methodist understanding from those who believe in eternal security. Once saved, always saved was a theme I was asked often about in the first churches I served in rural Mississippi. We Methodist Wesleyans believe that it is
Scripture Focus: I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground. In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses.
In an earlier article, we reflected on Wesley’s insistence on perfection being an essential dimension of our going on to salvation. He came from his Aldersgate experience convinced that all could be saved, and all could be saved to the uttermost. Thus assurance and perfection became essential in his understanding of grace working for our full salvation. As I wrote
Scripture Focus: You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified! The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit,
I am not trying to be overly dramatic. Throughout these three articles on the Holy Spirit (check out Part I and Part II), I have voiced my conviction that we are at a critical point. I would even describe it as a life and death point…in our church and in our nation. However, the overarching conviction is that the Holy
In my previous article I began a conversation about the Holy Spirit as someone to take the place of Jesus. Knowing the cross was coming, in one of his last conversations with his disciples, Jesus made the promise, “And I will pray to the Father, and He will give you another comforter, that He may abide with you forever.” (John
There is a familiar story line I sometimes see in movies or books that goes something like this. Someone is facing a crisis and wants to overcome the current situation. The hero of the story goes to a wise master for guidance. The master gives the new student a series of tasks to do to train for the work ahead.
Scripture Focus: In the days when the judges ruled in Israel, a severe famine came upon the land. So a man from Bethlehem in Judah left his home and went to live in the country of Moab, taking his wife and two sons with him. The man’s name was Elimelech, and his wife was Naomi. Their two sons were Mahlon
The Holy Spirit is certainly one of the most common and most important issues of faith and doctrine in the Church. We use the term and talk about the subject assuming that people know what we are talking about — when, at most, their understanding is limited and vague, and at best, they don’t have the faintest notion of what
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