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Am I Fighting the Right Battle?
In her book Invitation to Retreat , Ruth Haley Barton shares some of the many insights she has had since she began intentionally taking inattentional retreats to re-connect with God and her own d... -
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What Determines Happiness?
What Determines Happiness? Imagine a movie theater full of a hundred people. These hundred individuals represent the full continuum of happiness: Some are exceptionally happy, others less so, and ... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Context A Copy of the Law or a Second Law? Like the other books in the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), the title of the book of Deuteronomy comes from its translation into Greek. The... -
lectionary
16th Sunday after Pentecost
AIM Commentary Ageless Wisdom If you are reading this as a pastor, teacher or preacher, I want you to jot down how old you are here _________. If you wrote a number less than 30 know this letter... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, 1 Timothy 6:6-19
Ageless Wisdom If you are reading this as a pastor, teacher or preacher, I want you to jot down how old you are here _________. If you wrote a number less than 30 know this letter and this passage... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, 1 Timothy 2:1-7
Parakalō There are a lot of interesting words in this passage, including the second one. In the NIV, it says, “I urge...” In English, “urge” has some range. If I “urge you to reconsider,” we all kno... -
lectionary
15th Sunday after Pentecost
Preaching Commentary Parakalō There are a lot of interesting words in this passage, including the second one. In the NIV, it says, “I urge...” In English, “urge” has some range. If I “urge you to r... -
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The Heresy of Body/Spirit Dualism
Christianity Does Not Reject the Body The “spirit-good / body-bad” dualism that often passes for Christianity is actually an ancient gnostic error called “Manichaeism,” and it couldn’t be further from... -
blog
Naaman: A Parable of Leadership
Leadership Trauma is Taking a Toll The word is out. According to Barna, as of March 2022, the percentage of pastors considering quitting full-time ministry within the past year sits at 42 percen... -
Quote
By virtue of Creation, and still more the Incarnation, nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see. -
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Faith is seeing the invisible, but not the nonexistent. -
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By misinterpreting the Enlightenment and the corresponding rise of empiricism as an existential threat to Christian faith, many frightened Christians sequestered themselves into rooms of certitude. -
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Politics and the Resurrection
It seems that every four years, the American people come through another exhausting political season. No matter who “wins,” there are feelings of frustration and disgust on all sides as we observe the... -
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Blaming Creation Instead of Sin
The great danger is to always single out some aspect of God’s good creation and identify it, rather than the alien intrusion of sin, as the villain. Such an error conceives of the good-evil dichotomy ... -
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The Puzzle of Polygamy
A classic mission dilemma: The chief of a village in a remote area, whose people practice a tribal religion, becomes a believer and declares the whole village is now Christian. Most of the leading m... -
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All That Good Stuff
Sometime in the last decade or so I started hearing the phrase “all that good stuff.” I think it happened first when I was ordering dinner at a restaurant. The waitress summarized the menu briefly, en... -
liturgy
Jesus: You gave us Your love at a high
Jesus: You gave us Your love at a high price – Your own death on the cross in our place! By Your grace you give us eternal life and entrust to us Your creation. Thank You, Lord! We come today as Y... -
liturgy
O Lord, we are aware of how much we
O Lord, we are aware of how much we need you, and how much the world needs you. We yearn for your guidance and strength. We pray for your intervention and for your kingdom to come. Today we lift up t... -
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I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer. -
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Money is Fiction
Jesus warns against greed and seeking wealth, because ultimately, money is fiction. Gold coins? Slips of paper? Ones and zeroes in a computer? They only have value because people think they do.... -
liturgy
Lord, may your glorious Majesty
Lord, may your glorious Majesty surround us, the blessed Trinity protect us, and the eternal Godhead preserves us. Your unlimited mercy support us; your loving kindness encompass us; your favor c... -
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Chess and Surrender to God: The King is Infinity Points
We sometimes imagine surrender to God as emotional starvation. Every pleasure feels suspicious, and every passion feels in competition with our love of God. We think that the more miserable we are in ... -
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It is quite enough that you have sinned. Now let go of it. Don’t let your despondency lead to an even greater offence. The Lord says, ‘I do not wish the death of the sinner, but rather that he repent ... -
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Prayer does not fit us for the greater work; prayer is the greater work. -
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Christ has dominion over all creatures, a dominion not seized by violence nor usurped, but his by essence and by nature. -
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More Than I Could Believe
It was more than I could believe that Jesus was the only incarnate Son of God, that only he who believed in him would have everlasting life…my reason was not ready to believe literally that Jesus by h... -
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If your success is defined as being well adjusted to injustice and well adapted to indifference, then we don’t want successful leaders. We want great leaders who love the people enough and respect the... -
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There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the deepest messages of the Incarnation. -
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The Origin of the Word “Sacrament”
The word “sacrament” comes from the Latin word sacramentum. It was used in two ways at the time. First, it described the oath taken by soldiers in the Roman army. It was a sacred pledge of allegiance.... -
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Merton’s Turn to Christ and Virtue
In The Seven Storey Mountain , Thomas Merton describes his life of sin and his eventual turning to God in his early years. He despised and ridiculed the word virtue, which had come to mean “prudery p...
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