james on Restoration

Think of an ancient icon of Christ. Imagine that a thousand-year-old Christ Pantocrator painted on a wooden panel is discovered in some forgotten monastery. The image of Christ is there, but it’s cove...

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...

Eternal and Glorious God, Your grace calls us toward growth and service in You. Yet today we acknowledge the many times we have forgotten Your mercy and rejected Your love. Forgive us when we sin agai...

Heavenly Father: You know all about us – our weakness, our failing, our sin; And you still love us enough to give your Son to redeem us. Hear the cries of our hearts today. There’s someone for who...

God of Grace–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: You are good and You are almighty. You alone are worthy of our faith and trust and so we come to You with our hopes and hurts, our disappointments and dreams...

Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws....

God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—You are ever the same in Your grace and truth, Your power and love; Yet, You always challenge us to grow, change and become more like Jesus. We’re not yet what we w...

After the fall of apartheid in South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu led his country in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The TRC rejected the two extremes normally implemented after such...

Preaching Commentary A Highly Practical Text Often we come to scripture passages that require a bit of interpretive twists and turns to find ways of connecting the text to our modern-day lives in t...

Preaching Commentary Confrontation Most pastors don’t care for confrontation. Maybe, that could be said for most people. There are the rare few of us who thrive on the tension and drama that comes ...

Loving God: Abba—our Father; Jesus—our Savior; Spirit—our Comforter. As Advent begins ... we take a deep breath, we grit our teeth and steel our nerves anticipating the fast pace of the next few week...

Confrontation Most pastors don’t care for confrontation. Maybe, that could be said for most people. There are the rare few of us who thrive on the tension and drama that comes with a direct standoff,...

Summary of the Text What is the role of prayer on life’s journey? For James, its role is central. A letter that has been historically bashed for an emphasis on “works” over “faith” is immensely pract...

Preaching Commentary Summary of the Text What is the role of prayer on life’s journey? For James, its role is central. A letter that has been historically bashed for an emphasis on “works” over “fa...

Gary Moon and David Benner, visionary leaders in contemporary Christian soul care, provide a helpful background on the origin of this phrase: The English phrase “care of souls” has its origins in th...

Brandon and Faith Lee, who started Bird and Branch Coffee, are what faithful witnesses look like. When they sat down across from my wife and me, they had a dream to start a coffee shop that would serv...

The conversations that stand out sharpest to me now are those in which Dr. Brand recalled individual patients, “nobodies” on whom he had lavished medical care. When he began his pioneering work, he wa...

We repeat what we don’t repair.

The more we allow ourselves to personally experience sanctification by faith, the more we also experience healing by faith. These two doctrines walk together. The more the Spirit of God lives and acts...

Recovery is not a process we can will, but consists of experiencing many small deaths, the passing of significant anniversaries, until our identity is solid and natural in the pronoun “I.”

Sometimes the process of growth looks a lot like destruction and pain. But you’ll realize with time that you’re not breaking; you’re healing.

Gracious God, you tend to the earth as your vineyard, longing for it to bring fruit. You want our society and our lives to look more and more like the Kingdom of Heaven. We work against your plans, so...

Gracious and Merciful God—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: When we wouldn’t love—You did. When we couldn’t do right—you could. When we wouldn’t give—You gave and gave all of yourself. So we come to You w...

Wholeness is brokenness owned and thereby healed.

The Celebrant and People together, all kneeling Most holy and merciful Father: We confess to you and to one another, and to the whole communion of saints in heaven and on earth, that we have sinne...

Healing begins when, in the face of our own darkness, we recognize our helplessness and surrender our need for control… we face what is, and we ask for mercy.

What is "Deconstruction"? What is it Not? Many pastors I know have told me that one of their most pressing pastoral concerns right now is knowing how to minister to people who are decons...

O God, who is rich in mercy, We come before you humbled and in need of your grace. Many of us have been in the church for so long that we have forgotten how each day your mercies are new, your grace ...

Outward attacks and troubles rather fix than unsettle the Christian, as tempests from without only serve to root the oak faster; while an inward canker will gradually rot and decay it.

We fixate on sins of commission far too much. We practice holiness by subtraction-don't do this, don't do that, and you're okay. The problem with that is this: you can do nothing wrong and...