church life and ministry on Transformation

When I think of masterpieces, I think of art. But what is art? I like the way that Thomas Hoving, who was the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, put it: “Art happens when anyon...

In the early 1800s, the German naturalist and explorer Baron Alexander von Humboldt journeyed through South America on a scientific expedition. Deep in the Amazon rainforest, he encountered Indigenous...

Holy God, we come before You in humility, for we do not live as we ought. We do not love You with our whole heart and mind and strength. We do not love our neighbor as ourselves. We are sinners in nee...

Give us, O Lord, steadfast hearts, which no unworthy thought can drag downward, unconquered hearts, which no tribulation can wear out, upright hearts, which no unworthy purpose may tempt aside. Bestow...

Gracious God, we don’t live as Christ did. Although You give us specific instructions for an ordered way of life that stands out from the rest of the world, we settle for lukewarm Christianity. Our li...

Eternal God, we praise You for stepping out of eternity to enter this world through Your Son, Jesus. In so doing, You gave us the perfect example for Christian life. You gave of Yourself so that other...

Loving and forgiving God, we confess that we find it easier to follow the crowd than to follow you. We seek the praise of other humans, rather than seeking to give you joy with our faithfulness. When ...

Loving and forgiving God, we want to answer your invitation to experience a Christ-centered life. Yet all too often, our lives are much more centered around our ourselves than around Jesus. Jesus send...

Loving God, you love us so much that you invite us to a life of transformation. You call us to live outside ourselves, and to follow you more faithfully with each day that passes. We confess to you th...

Merciful God, loving Father, you govern all things in heaven and on earth and make all things new through your almighty word. Transform our sinful nature and all that we do by the power of your Holy S...

Merciful God, you have moved and changed our lives in amazing ways, yet we have kept these stories to ourselves. We confess the times we have kept these stories to ourselves out of fear of rejection a...

O Giver of every good and perfect gift, we confess that we are poor stewards of your bounty. You give us time, but we waste it. You give us life, but we use it to glorify ourselves. You give us wealth...

O, make your Word a swift Word, passing from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the lip and conversation; that, as the rain returns not empty, so neither may your Word, but accomplish that for wh...

Gracious Lord, like Nicodemus, we come to the word with many questions. Like the Pharisees, we can be captivated by correctness, intent on right answers. As we turn to your word, Spirit of God, do not...

Holy God, we know that you created us in love, to enjoy this world and You, to serve your creation and your children. And we know that we do not do your will. With clenched hands, we can neither give...

O God who will not let us go, we confess that we have been so wrapped up in ourselves that have not loved You with our whole hearts, and we have not loved our neighbors as we love ourselves. By Your g...

Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don’t be conformed to this world, bu...

“A young man came to visit me with a question on his mind. He asked, “I prayed to receive Jesus as my Savior, but why has nothing really changed in my life?” I asked him, “Who is running your life?” H...

What is of man uses manipulation to conform. What is of God uses implantation to transform.

Walter Brueggemann writes that the movement of the psalms is from orientation to disorientation and then to new orientation. The psalms give us a language for transformation in desert spaces: we move ...

But the rub of revelation is that it’s a transformation you’re not in charge of.

The same Jesus Who turned water into wine can transform your home, your life, your family, and your future. He is still in the miracle-working business, and His business is the business of transformat...

Give up the struggle and the fight; relax in the omnipotence of the Lord Jesus; look up into His lovely face and as you behold Him, He will transform you into His likeness. You do the beholding--He do...

Cultural transformation in a church or organization must go beyond interpersonal models of changing “one person at a time,” which dominates Western evangelical thinking. The goals of reconciliation ne...

Renewing the mind is a little like refinishing furniture. It is a two-stage process. It involves taking off the old and replacing it with the new. The old is the lies you have learned to tell or were ...

When I teach on the dynamics of real change and maturation, I often describe a “furnace of transformation” each of us must pass through for the sake of growth and refinement. I’ve never seen real grow...

In the end, the hope of transformation is anchored in the presence of a God who is utterly familiar with all the dark and light within us—and is not afraid of it. Recall the words of Macarius…“The hea...

Projects of personal transformation rarely if ever succeed by accident, drift or imposition.

[We] must take the need for human transformation as seriously as do modern revolutionary movements . Reprint edition. San Francisco: HarperOne, ix 1999.

We are all hypocrites in transition. I am not who I want to be, but I am on the journey there, and thankfully I am not whom I used to be.