To me, if life boils down to one significant thing, it’s movement. To live is to keep moving. Unfortunately, this means that for the rest of our lives we’re going to be looking for boxes. When you’re ...
This blessing includes prayers for the initiative/event itself, the volunteers for the event, the leaders organizing the event, the resources to be distributed at the event, and any community partners...
Matthew 6:25-34, Galatians 5:1, 1 Peter 5:7, Colossians 3:12-13, Isaiah 40:29, Hebrews 12:1, Philippians 2:4
One time, back when I was doing college ministry, I took a group of students camping. My wife came along with us. I had selected this really, really difficult hike. It was about ten miles long and alm...
Matthew 6:34, Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Peter 5:7, Isaiah 26:3, Matthew 8:26, Luke 12:25-26, Proverbs 3:5-6, Jeremiah 17:7-8
One day, a house-dog, standing at the window, was barking his head off at a passing mailman. The dog's owner, irritated, asks the dog, "Why do you always bark at that poor mailman?" The ...
As a stranger walked down a quiet residential street, he noticed a man struggling with a washing machine at the doorway of his house. The homeowner was clearly having a hard time, so the passerby, wan...
Proverbs 11:2, Ecclesiastes 3:1, Matthew 7:12, Philippians 2:3-4, Psalm 138:6
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...
Isaiah 43:19, Song of Solomon 4:7, Philippians 4:8, 2 Corinthians 4:16, Ecclesiastes 3:11, Psalm 147:3, Isaiah 61:3
If the too obvious, too straight branches of Truth and Good are crushed or amputated and cannot reach the light—yet perhaps the . . . unexpected branches of Beauty will make their way through and soar...
Eternal God, lead me now out of the familiar setting of my doubts and fears, beyond my pride and my need to be secure into a strange and graceful ease with my true proportions and with yours; ...
Gracious God, We build walls to protect ourselves, but it leads to isolation. We make independence the highest value, instead of complete dependence on You. Forgive us for our inability to surrender e...
One of the early hits of the internet had to be eBay. Suddenly getting rid of your old junk, or otherwise unnecessary “stuff,” could be sold, not just to your neighbors in a yard sale, but to anyone w...
In his Rule for monasteries, St. Benedict considered grumbling a serious offense against community life. He wrote, “If a disciple grumbles, not only aloud but in his heart … his action will not ...
A family from a remote area was making their first visit to a big city. They checked in to a grand hotel and stood in amazement at the impressive sight. Leaving the reception desk they came to the ele...
I remember playing a game as a child in which we would bend one knee and grab our foot behind us and then try to race—limping, stumbling and falling over as we struggled across the grass toward a fini...
Luke 2:6-7, Isaiah 53:2, Matthew 2:1-2, Philippians 2:6-8, 1 Corinthians 1:27-29
If you lacked simplicity, how then should this fall to you that midnight skies are a shine with? God, who stoked at men mild in you now comes to mortal eyes. That he’s not more great—does this surpris...
The furniture salesman said the couch would seat five friends without a problem. Then I realized, I don’t have five friends without a problem. Old joke—sorry—but still. It reminds me of the old saying...
2 Thessalonians 3:16, Matthew 11:28-30, Philippians 4:6-7, Isaiah 9:6, Romans 5:1, John 14:27, Colossians 1:19-20
Jesus, you are our peace You proclaim it You create it You bring us near Without you there is No safety No belonging No nurturing No identity rooted beyond this dust Without you we are Anchorless St...
Matthew 6:34, Proverbs 12:25, Psalm 34:17-18, Philippians 4:6-7, Isaiah 40:29-31
I have often heard anxiety described as a big beach ball that you try to push under the water. Do you remember playing that game as a child? Keep that beach ball under the water as long as you can! Yo...
Galatians 2:20, 2 Corinthians 5:17, James 2:14-17, John 3:3, Philippians 3:10, Romans 12:2
I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk, or a snooze in the sunshine. I don’t want enough of God t...
I love that part in The Silver Chair when old age simply vanishes from frail King Caspian, because age is the unavoidable meltdown, stripping even the bravest and most beautiful of their former glor...
Isaiah 9:2, John 1:4-5, Luke 2:8-14, 2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 Corinthians 13:13, Luke 19:1-10, Philippians 1:6, Matthew 6:33, Luke 10:38-42, Luke 2:11, Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 2:1-12
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...
John 1:1-18, Hebrews 1:1-2, Galatians 4:4-5, 1 Timothy 1:15-17, John 3:16-17, Philippians 2:6-8, Colossians 1:15-17
He who wraps the heavens in clouds wrapped round himself a towel. He who pours the water into the rivers and pools tipped... water into a basin. And he before whom every knee bends in heaven and on ea...
Isaiah 9:6, Philippians 2:6-7, 1 Corinthians 1:27-29, Luke 2:10-12, Micah 5:2, Matthew 2:1-2, 11, John 1:14, Isaiah 52:2-3, John 18:36
Politicians compete for the highest offices. Business tycoons scramble for a bigger and bigger piece of the pie. Armies march and scientists study and philosophers philosophise and preachers preach an...
Mark 13:37, Philippians 4:4-5, James 1:17, Psalm 95:2-3, 2 Corinthians 9:7, Matthew 2:10-11
What do you want for Christmas this year? If you were to ask a typical little boy, he’d probably give you two words: video games. There’s a little boy I know named Brian. For weeks he bugged his paren...
Luke 2:22-24, 2 Corinthians 8:9, Isaiah 9:6-7, Philippians 2:6-8, John 1:14, Isaiah 61:1
They were poor. We know this because the two young turtledoves Joseph and Mary brought was the smallest offering they were allowed as devout Jews and yet the largest they likely could afford. With tw...
One of our troubles, is that we have romanticized and sentimentalized the stable and the manger…We see them through the warm glow of our comfortable homes, our candles and our well-fed bodies....Perha...