Arts and Culture on Legacy

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The Elderly Contractor

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Scripture

Psalm 127:1, Matthew 25:23, Luke 16:10, Ecclesiastes 9:10, Proverbs 22:29, 1 Corinthians 3:13-14, Galatians 6:7

An elderly master carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family. He w...

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What Did Jesus Leave to Grow?

Author

H. G. Wells

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Scripture

Isaiah 9:6-7, Philippians 2:9-11, Mark 1:16-20, Matthew 11:28-30, John 10:10

H.G. Wells, himself an atheist, makes this point about the nature of greatness as it relates to Jesus: A historian like myself, who doesn’t even call himself a Christian, finds the picture centering...

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Author

Greek Proverb

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Mia koinonía megalónei ótan oi ilikioménoi fytévoun déntra ton opoíon i skiá gnorízoun óti den tha kathísoun poté. A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they will never ...

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Author

Jaroslav Pelikan

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Scripture

Colossians 1:16-17, John 1:1-4, Philippians 2:9-11, Matthew 27:54, Acts 9:1-6

Jesus of Nazareth has been the dominant figure in the history of Western culture for almost twenty centuries. If it were possible, with some sort of super magnet, to pull up out of that history every ...

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Earth, Receive an Honored Guest

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Revelation 21:4, John 14:1-4, Job 19:25-27

W.H. Auden is widely considered one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century. Auden grew up in England but spent some of his adult years in the United States. When he passed away on the 29th of Septe...

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Home: A Desire for Permanence

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

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Scripture

Hebrews 10:23, James 1:9-12, 1 Corinthians 15:58, Jeremiah 17:7-8, Colossians 2:6-7

Before Seattle resident Edith Macefield died at age eighty-six in 2008, she refused to sell her house to developers for the $1 million they had purportedly offered. Macefield wanted to die at home. Se...

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MLK Day Prayers for Church Services: Liturgy & Sermon Resources

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The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Micah 6:8, Amos 5:24, Isaiah 1:17, Galatians 3:28, James 2:1, Ephesians 2:14

Updated for 2026. January 19, 2026 is Martin Luther King Jr. Day— the only U.S. national holiday commemorating a pastor. Under his leadership, non-violent civil rights advocacy achieved leaps f...

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One Love—The Life and Music of Bob Marley

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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My Early Soundtrack What music shaped your early life? For most of us, our parents’ musical tastes probably were our starting place. That music made a deep impression on what we like — and don’t like...

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Pursuing the Common Good Throughout History

Author

Don Everts

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Scripture

Matthew 22:39, Philippians 2:3-4, 1 Corinthians 10:24, Romans 15:1-2, Galatians 6:10, Romans 12:10, Acts 20:35, Matthew 25:35-40, Isaiah 58:6-7, Proverbs 19:17, Luke 10:30-37, James 2:15-16, 1 John 3:17, Proverbs 31:8-9, Matthew 25:40, Acts 11:29-30, 2 Corinthians 8:13-15, Acts 2:44-45, Acts 4:32-35, 1 Corinthians 12:25-26

Pursuing the common good has been a strong marker of the Christian church from the very beginning. The early church had many habits that they became known for, of course—including meeting frequently, ...

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Our Changing Landscape

Author

Matthew Sleeth

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What we call “nature” isn’t the same nature our great-grandparents knew. Even if they lived as far south as Baltimore, they could cut eighteen-inch blocks of ice off ponds in the winter to cool their ...

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Land Stewardship and Care for the Vulnerable

Author

Hannah Anderson

Keywords

Stewardship

A friend of mine once remarked that how we care for the land often mirrors how we care for those dependent on it, especially women and children. Is our attitude one of entitlement and privilege? Do we...

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Author

Bernard of Clairvaux

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We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than they, and things at a greater distance, not by virtue of any sharpness of sight on our part, or any physical distinction, bu...

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Author

Corrie Ten Boom

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The measure of a life, after all, is not its duration, but its donation."

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Leaving It Behind

Author

Randy Alcorn

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A wealthy plantation owner invited John Wesley to his home. The two rode their horses all day, seeing just a fraction of all the man owned. At the end of the day the plantation owner proudly asked, “W...

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Author

Heinz Kohut

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Almost all heroic individuals face grave crises while they are still on the road to reaching the ultimate decision that they will remain faithful to their selves, whatever the cost.

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Our Stories Shape Our Values

Author

Dan B. Allender

Keywords

Scripture

Revelation 12:11, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Acts 22:3-8, John 1:46-47, Isaiah 61:1-3, Psalm 78:4

A close friend who started a financial loan business took thirty of his executives to the poverty- and violence-filled section of Montreal where he grew up in order to introduce them to the section of...

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Story as Worldview and the Example of Passover

Author

N. T. Wright and Michael Bird

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Stories, after all, are one of the most basic modes of human life and are a characteristic expression of worldview. Human life is constituted by a series of stories, implicit and explicit, that makes ...

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Author

Robert E. Webber

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How do you deliver the authentic faith and great wisdom of the past into the new cultural situation of the twenty-first century? The way into the future, I argue, is not an innovative new start for th...

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The Costly Love of the Father: Sermon Illustration Tuesday

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Scripture

Luke 15:11-32, Psalm 23:null, John 21:15-19, Luke 19:1-10, Genesis 45:4-7, Psalm 23:5, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19

In the old American South (and in many places in the American North) a European American who invited an African American as a guest to an expensive restaurant in a white section of town would subject ...

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Author

Randy Alcorn

Keywords

The sense that we will live forever somewhere has shaped every civilization in human history…the unifying testimony of the human heart through history is belief in life after death. Anthropological ev...

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Taking Care for the Next Generation

Author

Alan Wilson

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:28, 1 Chronicles 29:14-16, Matthew 25:14-30, Romans 11:36, 1 Corinthians 4:2

Known for their luxury watches, Swiss watchmaker Patek Philippe has also become well-known for its clever advertising slogan: “You never actually own a Patek Philippe; you merely take care of it for t...

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Author

S. Truett Cathy

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I’d like to be remembered as one who kept my priorities in the right order. We live in a changing world, but we need to be reminded that the important things have not changed, and the important things...

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Author

Victor Hugo

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Man's greatest actions are performed in minor struggles. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment and poverty are battlefields which have their heroes - obscure heroes who are at times greater tha...

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Author

Winston S. Churchill

Keywords

History

The longer you can look back, the further you can see forward.

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Our Place of Roots and Beginnings

Author

N. T. Wright

Keywords

In all our pilgrimages, we begin by going back to our roots. When Christians go to the Holy Land today, we do not go because God is present there in a way in which he is not in New York or Nottingham,...

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Author

Reinhold Niebuhr

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One of the most pathetic aspects of human history is that every civilization expresses itself most pretentious, compounds its partial and universal values most convincingly, and claims immortality for...

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The Crucial Importance of Stewarding the Gift

Author

A. J. Swoboda

Keywords

Scripture

Ecclesiastes 5:19, Proverbs 3:9-10, Luke 16:10-11, Matthew 25:21, 1 Peter 4:10

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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Author

John Barth

Keywords

Stories

Everyone is necessarily the hero of his own life story.

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Author

Cicero

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History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity.

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True Love

Author

Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 12:1, Isaiah 58:10, Philippians 2:3-4, Matthew 20:26-28, 1 Timothy 6:17-19, Luke 9:23

Merciful Jesus Give us courage to deny privilege to lay down favor and safety in order to take up the cross of opportunity and justice Too often we fail to do this Merciful Jesus Give us courage to d...

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