And Now We Begin by Kim Reisman
Kim Reisman
January 4, 2017
Now that we’ve celebrated God’s decision to put on flesh and bone and move into the neighborhood, we’re left with the question, what do we do now?
Now that we’ve celebrated God’s decision to put on flesh and bone and move into the neighborhood, we’re left with the question, what do we do now?
At our downtown ministry this week, I watched a precious soul rock an invisible baby while “Away in a Manger” was being sung and I was overwhelmed by the values of God and his preference for the poor. It is completely antithetical to our human nature to seek after and invest in the hidden places where the poorest of the
“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.” We all have something in each list. Tonight, I want to remind you that life is a complex mixture of all three kinds of experiences…good to celebrate, bad to grieve, and ugly to heal.
The word became flesh and lived among us.
The King of all creation was born as a lowly, disregarded nobody-baby. In part, that was because Mary and Joseph were nobodies. Joseph was a craftsman from the small town of Nazareth in Galilee. Mary was a young woman with an apparently questionable character. Still, they were the nobodies God wanted to use, and that was a surprise.
God creates. God redeems. Christian faith is deepened and enriched when we get the order right. This is especially true in the arena of evangelism, where our focus is often on individuals and our fervent hope that they might come into relationship with Jesus Christ. There is no doubt this is an extremely important focus. Yet something significant is lost
“The will to win is not nearly as important as the will to prepare to win.” – Everyone from Vince Lombardi to Bear Bryant to Bobby Knight is cited as the source of this quote. The wisdom found in it has outlasted the origin. Everyone wants to win. It doesn’t matter how you define winning – career success, relationship goals met,
Maybe as we proclaim the good news that will bring great joy to all people, we ought also to recall the words of our Prince of Peace, who told us that God blesses peacemakers. Maybe in this season of peace and beyond, we need to ask how might we become more active in our peacemaking?
Word and deed come together, as intimately entwined as breathing in and breathing out. Deciding which is more important depends on which you did last.
I have a delicious no-fail sourdough bread recipe! It involves a three-step process spread over one and a half days. The key to the recipe is to give the bread dough time to “yeast” – Sue Monk Kidd’s word for allowing bread to rise. Kidd tells of making the bread with the assistance of her five year old daughter, Ann.
“Pastor, why can’t you just preach the gospel and stay away from all this controversial stuff?” It’s likely your pastor has heard this question dozens of times in recent years, yet he or she may be reticent to speak about it for fear of calling out certain members of the congregation or appearing to respond to specific criticism of recent
Before people used Enneagram types or extroversion temperaments to describe themselves, personalities were described using ancient medical terms: sanguine, melancholy, phlegmatic, and choleric. Maybe you’ve seen the words used as nouns or used descriptively about a person. Sanguines are social butterflies. They can carry on a conversation with anyone, anytime. They’ve never met a stranger, because they’re friends as soon
While United Methodists spend a great deal of time, money, and energy attempting to shape potential outcomes of the specially called 2019 General Conference in St. Louis, it is quite possible that the conference most potently rocking the Kingdom of God already took place in St. Louis over the summer. The fate of the United Methodist denomination is not unimportant;
People have different ways of approaching reality. Some are analytical, reasoned, and logical. That’s not me. Not that I can’t be analytical, reasoned and logical. I can, but those are deliberate disciplines that I practice in contrast to my instinctive way of approaching the world, which is through my feelings. I’m just a feeling kind of person. Maybe too much
Recently Wesleyan Accent spoke with Rev. Omar Al-Rikabi, an occasional Wesleyan Accent contributor and author of The Advent Mission, a new Christmastime devotional from Seedbed Publishing. Wesleyan Accent:Why the Advent “mission”? Is this about missions? Global missionaries? Do I have to give money? Hey, is this a sneaky way for churches to take an extra offering? Omar Al-Rikabi: I think it
It can be frustrating to do right. It can be hard to be faithful and to follow God, especially when you see so many others that, in your mind, are not. We see the wickedness. The greed. All the things that others are doing wrong. It can be easy to give up, to say, “why keep trying?” Why should I
“Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.” – Proverbs 11:14 Seek godly counsel; it will provide safety. The wisdom of others can keep you from falling. Decisions made today have the potential to impact many tomorrows. Wisdom instructs us to seek the godly counsel of others. Their insight can provide the
If you have ever been lost, you know the feeling – one minute you are fine and the next you realize you have no idea where you are or how to get back. The Bible uses the metaphor of being lost to help us to understand what it is like to be far from God. If you are a follower
The word “relational” gets thrown around a great deal when discussing evangelism. Just what that means deserves a closer examination. Allow me to illustrate one way I have in mind. I had many questions about faith before I made a decision to follow Jesus in my early 20s. One of the things that compelled me to become a disciple of
My first appointment out of seminary was the hardest appointment that I’ve ever had. It wasn’t because the people were hard to pastor: they were some of the sweetest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of serving. It wasn’t because the church was located in a bad place: it was out in the country, a beautiful church and beautiful parsonage.
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