church life and ministry from isaiah 1

By failing to come to grips with how cultural dysfunctions deeply impact the health of the church, our leaders will continue to fail to discern an essential reality concerning the nature of change: Cu...

A missionary family who has started organic churches in some of the most dangerous fields in the world once returned to the states for furlough. On the first Sunday back, they visited a large Baptist ...

Eternal God, our judge and redeemer, we confess that we have tried to hide from You, for we have done wrong. We have lived for ourselves, and apart from You. We have turned from our neighbors and refu...

God, the fact that we feel uncomfortable is evidence that we perceive the injustices in our world. We don’t ask you to help us hear the cries of injustice, but rather to give us courage to act against...

Almighty and merciful God, the fountain of all goodness, who knows the thoughts of our hearts: We confess that we have sinned against you. Wash us, we implore you, from the stains of our past sins...

Holy and merciful God, we confess to you and to one another, and in the company of the communion of saints, that we have sinned by our own fault, in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and ...

Kind and loving God, forgive us for our lack of faith. You deserve our reverence, obedience, and faith, but we give You so much less. Because of our lukewarm devotion, we miss out on so much that You ...

Prayer of Adoration Lord – You are good …and Your goodness knows no bounds. When we were lost, You sought us out, found us and brought us home. When we were alone, You came near to us, and You gave ...

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...

What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anaemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice.

To confess, then, is to praise and glorify God; it is an exercise in self-knowledge and true humility in the atmosphere of grace and reconciliation.

The pyschologist Carl Rogers, a person who would know quite well the interior lives of others, has this to say of our inmost thoughts: I have most invariably found that the very feeling which has see...

There were only a few shepherds at the first Bethlehem. The ox and the donkey understood more of the first Christmas than the high priests in Jerusalem. And it is the same today.

In this beautiful illustration from Tom Long’s well-known preaching guide, The Witness of Preaching , a pastor shares a true story of what valuing human life can look like when God’s Kingdom takes ro...

Forgiveness is God's greatest gift because it meets our greatest need.

We don’t come to Him as bad people trying to become good people; we come as rebels to lay down our arms.

Every voting choice you exercise ought to be for the candidate, platform, party, or policy that will best represent the values of the kingdom of God.

There is something profoundly hypocritical about praising God for God’s mighty deeds of salvation and cooperating at the same time with the demons of destruction, whether by neglecting to do good or b...