Arts and Culture on Energy

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How Much is in Your Tank?

Author

Keywords

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been very good at paying attention to my car’s fuel tank. I remember in high school I drove an old Jeep Grand Cherokee that had a digital fuel gauge. In 1998 tha...

liturgy

God–our Father, Lord and indwelling

Author

Richard Herman

Scripture

Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Timothy 2:1-2, Psalm 133:1, 2 Corinthians 9:13-14, Matthew 28:19-20

God–our Father, Lord and indwelling Spirit of grace and power: Thank you for hearing us when we pray whether in songs of rejoicing or through tears of sorrow. Thank you for gifts–for the gifts of musi...

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The Blood Suckers

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

During a large part of my childhood my father was in school, so we never really went on a traditional “vacation” until late in my elementary school years. I distinctly remember one of our first trips,...

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Author

The Onion

Keywords

Nothing is more precious than teeming, overabundant resource-destroying human life. (For humor/contrast)

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Presence in the Universe

Author

David G. Benner

Keywords

Scripture

Ephesians 4:4

Now, in our lifetime, scientists are finding ever newer evidence for what some religious people called presence in the very organizing energy of the universe—from fractals, to holograms, to electro-ma...

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Unsurprisingly, whenever we bring the topic of desire

Author

Curt Thompson

Keywords

Scripture

Song of Solomon 8:6-7 , Genesis 29:16-30, Hosea 2:14-20, Psalm 42:1-2, John 4:7-26 , Ephesians 5:25-32

Unsurprisingly, whenever we bring the topic of desire into view, our imaginations easily wander in the direction of sex, which can be as discomforting as it is arousing—but it is certainly not irrelev...

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Western Culture: American Prosperity and Consumption

Author

Jonathan Walton

Keywords

Consumerism

In his thought-provoking book, Twelve Lies That Hold America Captive, Jonathan Walton uncovers some of the hard truths about American culture. In this excerpt, he describes the consumption associa...

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Sermon Prep & Self-Awareness: Austin Carty's Guide to Authentic Sermon Writing

Author

Paul Koptak

Keywords

Some of the Words are Theirs: The Art of Writing and Living a Sermon by is a book by a preacher who loves the craft of writing . And what is the writing of poetry, fiction, essay, but offering ins...

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Broken Symmetries and the Masses of Gauge Bosons

Author

Jeff Volkmer

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 24:46

In 1964 Peter Higgs wrote a paper entitled, “Broken Symmetries and the Masses of Gauge Bosons,” which proposed the existence of a new fundamental particle of matter based solely upon mathematical dedu...

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5 Quotes on Summer

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Looking for inspiration for your summertime sermons? Here are five quotes that highlight different themes about summer. Quote 1 Comment: I love The Office , but in this short quotation...

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Envy in The Disney/Pixar Film The Incredibles

Author

Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung

Keywords

Scripture

1 Samuel 18:10-16, Proverbs 14:30, Genesis 4:1-16

Syndrome (formerly called Incrediboy) in the film The lncredibles is one example of envy’s futility and the envier’s inferiority, which together secure the inevitable lack of success in besting one’s ...

liturgy

Great God our Father, Savior and Holy

Author

Richard Herman

Keywords

Great God our Father, Savior and Holy Spirit: Our hearts are filled with gratitude for your grace and faithfulness. Thank you for caring about those who we care about–for those who are sick or injured...

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The Ted Lasso Effect on Bros

Author

Scott B. Bullock

Keywords

**Spoiler Alert:**This review contains some minor spoilers about the plot of Ted Lasso . Content Alert: Ted Lasso contains adult themes, sexual content, and strong language. I’ve read at least ...

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Is it Callous to Avoid the News?

Author

Jeffrey Bilbro

Keywords

News/Media

The contemporary novelist Barbara Kingsolver, in a marvelous essay detailing why she and her family don’t watch TV, describes a conversation she had with a friend about the airplane crash involving Jo...

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Giving Matters: A Biblical Approach to Stewardship

Author

Gabe Fung

Keywords

Stewardship

Scripture

1 Corinthians 9:6-15, Matthew 6:19

Giving Matters In 2 Corinthians 9:6-15, Paul provides us with four crucial lessons on Christian giving: 1) How we give; 2) What we give; 3) What happens when we give; and 4) Why we give. How We Give...

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Running Towards the Lion

Author

Tom Doyle

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Lions have an especially pernicious way of hunting their prey. It seems that they terrorize their victims into making the worst possible choice about how to protect themselves from being eaten. The hu...

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The World Is Getting Crowded

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No one likes to talk about human population. Christians in particular are rightly wary of the ways in which population discussions have sometimes served to denigrate the value of human life and the bl...

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The Farmer’s Market and Increasing Optimism in Politics

Author

Eric O. Jacobsen

Keywords

Daniel Kemmis provides a political model for seeing redemptive possibilities in our cities. Kemmis, a former mayor of Missoula, has noted an increasing cynicism about political life in this country. T...

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Book Review: When Narcissism Comes to Church

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:null

Pride, and its more serious cousin, narcissism, really shouldn’t have any place in leadership circles in the church. When I became a serious follower of Jesus at a teenager, Philippians 2 became one o...

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Author

Gerald G. May

Keywords

I have now come to believe that addiction is a separate and even more self-defeating force that abuses our freedom and makes us do things we really do not want to do. While repression stifles desire, ...

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The Patron Saint of Social Media

Author

Mike Cosper

Keywords

Social Media

An incredible amount of energy goes into curating our online personas. Kim Kardashian, the patron-saint of social media, once said she “needed” about 1,200 selfies per day in order to get the good one...

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Our Preoccupations

Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

Keywords

More enslaving than our occupations, however, are our preoccupations. To be pre-occupied means to fill our time and place long before we are there. This is worrying in the more specific sense of the w...

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A Transformation of Stone

Author

Sam Whatley

Keywords

In 1463, members of the City Council of Firenze (Florence) Italy decided they needed a monument to enhance their city. They commissioned a sculptor to carve a giant statue to stand in front of city ha...

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Crafting the Perfect Christmas

Author

Andy Cook

Keywords

Scripture

Proverbs 31:10-31, Matthew 6:19-21 , Luke 10:38-42, Ecclesiastes 4:6 , Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, James 1:17, Isaiah 9:6, Luke 2:11, John 3:16-17 , Luke 2:10

Ann was a working mother in her 30’s, and one of the millions of women who saw the marshmallow castle on the December cover of a popular women’s magazine. Ann confessed, later, that she felt like a “b...

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Creating Christian Consumers

Author

Jay Y. Kim

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 1:22-25, Romans 12:2, 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, Isaiah 55:8-8, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

I’ve served on staff at a few different churches throughout Silicon Valley for the last decade and a half, including a medium-sized church, a young church plant, and a multisite megachurch. At each, w...

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Topsoil and Christ

Author

Wendell Berry

Keywords

The most exemplary nature is that of the topsoil. It is very Christ-like in its passivity and beneficence, and in the penetrating energy that issues out of its peaceableness. It increases by experienc...

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Our Stuff in America

Author

Joshua Becker

Keywords

Possessions

In America, we consume twice as many material goods as we did fifty years ago. Over the same period, the size of the average American home has nearly tripled, and today that average home contains abou...

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Creating a Healthy Food Supply

Author

Norman Wirzba

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 8:19-21, Matthew 6:26, Colossians 1:16, Leviticus 25:23, Proverbs 12:10, Psalm 24:1, Genesis 2:15

Eating does not need to follow this commodified, industrial way. It can occur in contexts where people take deeper notice of and accept responsibility for what they eat. To appreciate what this sort o...

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Author

Eugene Peterson

Keywords

Consumer Christianity

American religion is conspicuous for its messianically pretentious energy, its embarassingly banal prose, and its impatiently hustling ambition.

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Author

Dorothy L. Sayers

Keywords

We cannot deal with industrialism or unemployment unless we lift work out of the economic, political and social spheres and consider it also in terms of the work's worth and the love of the work, ...

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