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In an institutionalized church, the good has become the enemy of the best, and activity has choked out productivity. -
blog
Hard Holy Days and the Wondrous Mystery
Christmas is Over It’s Christmas morning, not yet light. I am ten years old, creeping down the stairs, and I am full of hope. My siblings and I were told there will be no Christmas. Our mother told u... -
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Distraction is the Greatest Threat to Churches
The journalist Andrew Sullivan has some strong words of advice for the modern church, If the churches came to understand that the greatest threat to faith today is not hedonism but distraction, p... -
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Innovation or Heresy
It’s funny how sometimes members of the church can associate anything new with “heresy.” We often make the mistake of confusing technological innovations or scientific discoveries for changes to the g... -
blog
Ageism Everywhere All at Once — An Opportunity for the Church
Earlier this month Michelle Yeoh won the Best Actress Academy Award for her work in the film Everything Everywhere All at Once . In her moving acceptance speech, she said, “For all the little boys an... -
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Ash Wednesday & A Public Faith
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always enjoyed the public nature of Ash Wednesday. That is to say, what happens when we leave an Ash Wednesday service and there is the sign of the cross, for all who ... -
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Settling Accounts
The story is told of a farmer in a Midwestern state who had a strong disdain for “religious” things. As he plowed his field on Sunday morning, he would shake his fist at the church people who passed b... -
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Calling Means Finding Purpose in Every Kind of Work
God calls His people to lots of different things. Sometimes you feel a sense of calling to your job and, you know what, sometimes you don’t. You just work. I’m extremely thankful that I love what I do... -
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Praising Slowness
In our culture slow is a pejorative. When somebody has a low IQ, we dub him or her slow. When the service at a restaurant is lousy, we call it slow. When a movie is boring, again, we complain that it’... -
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When Values Turn Vicious
The digital age’s technological advancements boast three major contributions to the improvement of human experience, which in turn have become its undeniable values: We have access to what we want wh... -
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Forever Elsewhere
We say we turn to our phones when we’re “bored.” And we often find ourselves bored because we have become accustomed to a constant feed of connection, information, and entertainment. We are forever el... -
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Near a Wonderful Beauty
J.M. Montgomery’s novel Emily of New Moon has a passage that conveys the attractive and terrifying aspects of the mystery of God: It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, th... -
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BE SHORT
The Puritan preacher Cotton Mather, hard at work over the business of ministry, prayer, and writing, wrote over his study door in large letters, “BE SHORT.” Today, he might well have written "MAK... -
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Why Did God Make This World?
To ask our (not so) simple question in another way: Why did God make this world? Why did he make a world for his own glory in Christ and then fill it to the brim with pleasures—physical pleasures, sen... -
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The Crucial Importance of Stewarding the Gift
The story is well known in the family: my grandparents had driven up from California the evening before. Stopping at a gas station along the Oregon border, they purchased some snacks, gas, and, as the... -
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It All Starts with Relationships
Everything significant starts with relationship. At the end of the day, your faith, your family, your work, and your leadership are all based on who you relate to and how you relate. Your life is moti... -
Quote
If this world was made by a triune God, a being of community, then relationships of love are what life is really all about. -
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God is a Gentleman
Frank Buchman, an American Lutheran who founded the First Century Christian Fellowship in 1921, later renamed the Oxford Group in 1928, was known for his belief in divine guidance. One evening, Presid... -
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Is it a Sin to Bore Adults with the Gospel?
Jim Rayburn, the founder of Young Life, a nationwide youth ministry, used to say, “It’s a sin to bore a kid with the gospel.” But what about adults? Is it okay to bore grownups with the gospel? I ask ... -
liturgy
Work with God's Purpose
O God, who gives to every man and woman their work, and through their labors does accomplish your purposes upon earth: Grant your blessing, we beg you, to those who are engaged in the work and busines... -
liturgy
Empowered by God's Holy Word
Leader: “O Lord, who shall sojourn in Your tent? Who shall dwell on Your holy hill?” In Your great grace, O God, You have called us into Your holy presence, and for that we give You great thanks! Yo... -
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Friendships from a Biblical Perspective
Friend. We use that word too loosely. Too flippantly. We use it too generously. And most damaging of all, we give the title to people who haven’t earned it. I recognize that using the word earn makes ... -
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The Cycle of Upheaval
Every five hundred years, give or take a decade or two, Western culture, along with those parts of the world that have been colonized or colonialized by it, goes through a time of enormous upheaval, a... -
lectionary
Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Preaching Commentary Lamenting a Living Son This is God’s own lament: a brokenhearted father mourning the loss of a still-living son. Throughout the book, God has led Hosea to draw from moments of... -
Quote
I believe in God and the whole business, but I love women best, music and science next, whiskey next, God fourth, and my fellowman hardly at all.” -
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The Gift of College Students
I have been moved to a different course of action, however, inspired largely by my daily exposure to college students in a great university during the course of a preaching and teaching ministry that ... -
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The Power of the V Formation
Have you ever noticed geese soaring across the sky in a V formation? Scientists have uncovered the wisdom behind this flight pattern: as each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the one beh... -
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Through the Seasons
I have observed through the years that most Christians have little understanding of the word ‘season’. Our Lord is a seasonal God; He comes, He departs. His faithfulness never changes, but His seasons... -
blog
The Importance of Listening to God
Over the years, I have led hundreds of retreats that have at their center a few hours to be alone and quiet in listening prayer. At one such retreat, one participant shared a conversation she had wit... -
Quote
To live well is to work well.
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