2 corinthians on Procrastination

Holy God, we confess that we have been lukewarm about living our faith in Jesus each day. We put off to tomorrow what we know in our hearts you want to happen today. We go through the motions of relig...

Some people find themselves stuck in a rut. Without challenge or new opportunities, they begin to sound like Snoopy from the Peanuts cartoons: “Yesterday I was a dog. Today I’m a dog. Tomorrow I’ll p...

Sister Joan Chittister writes about regret in the context of aging, though I think most of us can identify with this personification of Mr. R.: Regret…comes upon us one day dressed up like wisdom, l...

jobs concluding, stages finishing, grieving over, grudges over, blaming over, excuses over. O God, grant me your sense of timing. In this season of ...

In many parts of the country, leaf clean-up is an annual chore. They fall from the trees, blanket our lawns, and we often bag them up and toss them out (or burn them). There’s a lesson in this… In my...

To Lent or Not to Lent As someone who grew up Catholic but who "crossed the Tiber north" in middle school (to Presbyterian land), I've experienced some very different perspectives on wh...

If we acknowledge that our inclination to sin is part of our natures, and that we will never wholly eradicate it, there is at least something for us to do in our lives that will not in the end seem ju...

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

Heavenly Father, forgive us when we try to go our own way and end up running from you. Forgive us when we shy away from the work that you want to do in our lives. Help us to be willing to go through y...

Lord, sometimes it’s so difficult to place our trust in you. You make incredible promises to us in your word. You say that through your power, we’ll be able to do even greater things than Jesus did in...

Transition is one of the givens in our lives, and we only live well, we only manage our lives well, when we manage these transitions well. Our world changes; the circumstances of our lives change. The...

Suppose I sell you a piece of commercial property on which I am already behind in my mortgage payments. You not only pay me a fair price for the property but also pay my overdue payments. Now the prop...

You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.

Gracious God, you forgive us whenever we ask, and so we ask you now to forgive all of our sins. We need your grace again, for we often return to the same sins, over and over again. Your Spirit longs t...

Pastor: O God of grace, you have taken my sin and put it on Jesus’ head, and you’ve taken his righteousness and put it on mine. You’ve made me holy and blameless in your sight; therefore, you delight ...

Deliver me, O Lord, from that evil man, myself.

Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.

Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope ...

Faith: not wanting to know what is true.

A story is told of a young violinist who lived in London many years ago. He was a superb musician. He loved his music and enjoyed playing before small groups of people in the homes of friends. But he ...

Faith, thankfully, does not preclude doubt. It consists of staking your life on the rumor of grace.

A contemporary Ash Wednesday service integrating music and scripture with the imposition of ashes.  Service Order Prelude People are encouraged to enter in silence. Lights are dim. As people ...

Less is more. Coined by Robert Browning and popularized by the German-born American architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, nothing could be further from the literal truth. But when people use this exp...

Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.

Dear Lord, We come to you this evening with great expectations. Expectations that your Son Jesus has been born, and that his life is a light for us and all people. We come with expectations that He c...

Holy Spirit, you have come to reconcile us to each other, but we resist your work to bind us together. We hold onto grudges. Even though we know God has forgiven us in Jesus Christ, we are slow to for...

The man of pseudo-faith will fight for his verbal creed but refuse flatly to allow himself to get in a predicament where his future must depend upon that creed being true. He always provides himself w...

Preaching Commentary Besieged from All Angles The context of this passage is best summed up with the words recorded throughout the letter: Trouble, Distress, Suffering, Hardship, Death at work, Jar...

This is a traditional Ash Wednesday service focused on a penitent and reflective beginning of Lent. It features traditional collects, an invitation to a holy Lent, and a confession structured as a lit...

I believe in the sun though it is late in rising. I believe in love though it is absent. I believe in God though He is silent.