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liturgy
God and Father of all, in your lovey ou
God and Father of all, in your love you made all the nations of the world to be a family, and your Son taught us to love one another. Yet our world is riven apart with prejudice, arrogance, and pride.... -
illustration
A Jagged Symbol of Equality & Inequality
My friend Ray McMillan introduced me to the Liberty Bell as a perfect object lesson for America’s racial divide. In addressing why “the bell won’t ring,” Ray describes the crack as a perfect illustrat... -
illustration
Race and Friendship
In a 2009 stand-up special, Chris Rock made a funny, and perhaps true, statement: “All my black friends have a bunch of white friends. And all my white friends have one black friend.” It turns out, R... -
illustration
A Different Way of Doing Justice
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... -
illustration
Nelson Mandela and a Presidency of Reconciliation
What does true forgiveness and reconciliation look like? The world was given such an image the day Nelson Mandela was sworn in as President of South Africa. What was so significant was not just that a... -
liturgy
Prayer for Times of Conflict
O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us, in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work together with mutual... -
illustration
Forgiveness is a Gift
God has given us all a message of reconciliation-that God, in Christ, has reconciled the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). The first place we are invited to practice this reconciliation is wit... -
illustration
The Line Runs Through
In any polarized situation, the overriding human tendency is to draw a line with oneself and one’s allies on the good side and the opposing party on the wicked side, with very little attempt made by e... -
blog
The Line Runs Through: Sermon Illustration Tuesday
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the lin... -
liturgy
Gracious God, we know that You have
Gracious God, we know that You have forgiven us in Jesus Christ, but we often remain slow to forgive one other. You have sent Your Spirit to reconcile us to each other, but we resist Your work to bind... -
illustration
The White Man’s Burden
In the context of justice, I think what Christians need to confess about their pride isn’t so much about taking credit away from God but from the people we help. One version of this is sometimes refer... -
illustration
Revenge Doesn’t Say
In Exclusion and Embrace , Yale professor Miroslav Volf reflects on the themes of revenge, mercy, forgiveness and grace. Volf, who grew up in war-ravaged Croatia, speaks from a place of deep concer... -
Quote
We the people of this new generation highly resolve that those who sacrificed before us shall not have sacrificed in vain. Let justice roll on. -
illustration
Tension Leads to Breakthrough
Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and ob... -
liturgy
Eternal and Glorious God, Your grace
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... -
liturgy
Pray for Peace and Reconciliation
Pastor: Let us turn in prayer to our God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. We pray for the Church, marked with the sign of the cross, as we begin the jour... -
blog
One Night I Went to Church — Sermon Illustration Tuesday
One night I went to church Confronted by rampant inequality and discrimination built into the laws, Black Christians were a driving force in making the American public confront the racism in our mid... -
illustration
Paul and Onesimus
One of my favorite Bible illustrations of someone willing to go against the norms of society to befriend another based on love and forgiveness is found in the New Testament book of Philemon. It is a m... -
blog
Working with God through Our Work
Note from TPW: Kara Martin addresses life in the secular workplace, sharing insights to help you lead your congregations to understand their faith and work and also to bring the Kingdom into your o... -
illustration
Dying from the Unspoken War Back Home
I was sixteen when a white deputy sheriff shot and killed my twenty-five-year-old brother, Clyde, in New Hebron, Mississippi, where we had grown up. Clyde had returned home from fighting in World War ... -
illustration
Running His Race
In his book The Burden is the Light, Jon Tyson shares how, as a child, he had excelled as a runner, winning a number of races and even breaking state records. But everything changed when another athle... -
liturgy
Benediction for Justice and Peace
As we depart, Both individually and collectively Be who you are called to be. In any and in all the ways you can Seek justice. Resist evil. Stand strong against Death. And all Death’s works and w... -
liturgy
Prayer for the Unity of the Church
O God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior, the Prince of Peace: Give us grace to take to heart the great dangers we are in by our unhappy divisions. Take away all hatred and prejudice... -
liturgy
A Contemporary Lament for Violence
Notes on prayer: This prayer is designed for a leader and a congregation, but it could be further divided so that the Leader/People response sections are "voice 1" and "voice 2." ... -
liturgy
God our Father We confess to you and to
God our Father We confess to you and to one another That we have been quick to anger And slow to mercy We have paid back abuse with abuse Hatred with hatred And violence with violence The world does n... -
illustration
Saving Souls Without Discipling?
I had just finished presenting much of the material in this chapter [on the role of the Church helping the poor] to an audience in Africa. A very tall and muscular African man in the audience approach... -
illustration
Put the World’s Enemies in a Room Together
During my training [as a therapist], a supervisor once told me, “There’s something likable in everyone,” and to my great surprise, I found that she was right. It’s impossible to get to know people dee... -
illustration
The Hitchhiker Who Pulled a Gun on Me
I was driving in Columbus, Ohio, when I came upon a hitchhiker who alternated between holding his thumb out and clasping his hands together as if he were praying. I picked him up. His name was Mike, a... -
Quote
Jesus offers a new sort of justice, a creative, healing, restorative justice. The old justice found in the Bible was designed to prevent revenge running away with itself. Better an eye for an eye and ... -
lectionary
10th Sunday after Pentecost
Preaching Commentary Background to the Letter and Passage Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was probably intended for wider distribution and use among the various churches around Ephesus. As such, the...
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