Current Affairs and Causes on Ordinary Life

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Exodus 16:1-36, 1 Kings 17:8-16, Ecclesiastes 3:1-13, Matthew 6:25-34 , Colossians 3:23-24, Psalm 118:24

Everydayness is my problem. It’s easy to think about what you would do in wartime, or if a hurricane blows through, or if you spent a month in Paris, or if your guy wins the election, or if you won th...

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Praying for Demar Hamlin & Our Primal Desire to Pray

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Ephesians 4:null

Like many of you, I've been somewhat glued to the story of Damar Hamlin since Monday evening, when the defensive player for the Buffalo Bills collapsed on the field after making a tackle. In the ...

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Author

Horace Bushnell

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Scripture

Joshua 1:6-9, Nehemiah 2:11-20, 1 Kings 19:19-21, Luke 10:17-20, Psalm 122:122:1

Life is always dull and insipid to those who have no great works on their hands to do and no lofty ideals to elevate their spirits.

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Ash Wednesday & A Public Faith

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Joel 2:12-13, Romans 3:20-26, Job 42:5-6, Ezekiel 9:4, Genesis 2:7, Ecclesiastes 3:20

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always enjoyed the public nature of Ash Wednesday. That is to say, what happens when we leave an Ash Wednesday service and there is the sign of the cross, for all who ...

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Sacred Space: Lessons from Ethiopia’s Church Forests

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William Rowley

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Too Busy for God? American work culture is all-pervasive. For many members of your congregation, it can be a real fight to get actual time off—and cell phones and the internet has made it possible to...

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Mother Teresa: Everyone Can Do Something

Author

Hal Donaldson

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Zombie phobia kicked in as I climbed the hospital’s dimly lit cement steps. For some reason, every hospital scene in every zombie movie I’d ever seen came flooding back. But this was no ordinary hospi...

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Times of Crisis: Sermon Illustration Tuesday

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Crises

On November 28, 1942, a fire broke out and spread rapidly through an overcrowded Boston nightclub called Cocoanut Grove (the owner’s spelling), whose sole exit became blocked. A total of 492 people di...

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Times of Crisis: Reappraising and Rebuilding Lives

Author

Jared Diamond

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Scripture

Psalm 34:18, Romans 12:15, John 11:35, Isaiah 61:3, 2 Corinthians 1:4, Lamentations 3:32

On November 28, 1942, a fire broke out and spread rapidly through an overcrowded Boston nightclub called Cocoanut Grove (the owner’s spelling), whose sole exit became blocked. A total of 492 people di...

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Justice as the Source of Conversion

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

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Scripture

Proverbs 21:2, Revelation 20:12, James 2:12-13, Matthew 12:36-37, 2 Corinthians 5:10, Romans 14:12, Hebrews 9:27

W.H. Auden is one of the greatest poets of the 20th Century, who grew up in England but who spent some of his life in the United States. In November 1939 he found himself in a German-language movie th...

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What Does it Mean to be Blessed?

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The Pastor's Workshop

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Scripture

Genesis 32:24-30, Numbers 6:24-26, 1 Kings 17:8-16 , Matthew 5:3-12 , Luke 1:46-55, Psalm 34:18

The word blessed has been among the vocabulary I’ve removed from my daily life. In the faith of my young adulthood, it was a word that filled my conversations: a term to close out emails or to d...

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Sermon Illustration Tuesday (3.12)

Author

Stuart R. Strachan, Jr.

Keywords

Justice

Scripture

Revelation 21:4, Ephesians 2:8-9, Philippians 4:6-7, Proverbs 3:5-6, Romans 8:28, John 3:16, Isaiah 40:31

W.H. Auden is 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. In November 1939, he found himself in a German-language mo...

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Open Seating

Author

Scott Bowerman

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Scripture

Luke 14:7-11

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson wanted to make a point. The new British Ambassador had just come to Washington - the representative of the aristocratic government the new Republic had defeated in ...

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Heroes Depend on Others

Author

John M. Perkins

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People like me, Martin Luther King Jr., and a few others sometimes earn a hero status for things we did during the civil rights movement, but really the daily, faithful acts of ordinary black and whit...

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Afraid of Myself

Author

Timothy Keller

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Scripture

1 Corinthians 10:12, Romans 7:24-25, Ecclesiastes 7:20, 1 John 1:8, Mark 7:21-23, Romans 7:18-19

Adolf Eichmann was one of the Nazi architects of the Holocaust who escaped after World War II to South America, where he was caught in 1960 and taken back to Israel for a trial. He was tried, found gu...

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All Spies Are Liars

Author

Jen Pollock Michel

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When Quentin Rowan published his first spy novel, Assassin of Secrets, it was initially received with glowing reviews. But five days after its release, it became clear that the novel had been almost e...

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Author

Craig Dykstra And Dorothy Bass

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Scripture

Ecclesiastes 12:13, Proverbs 3:5-6, Nehemiah 6:3, Matthew 6:33, Ephesians 2:10, Psalm 90:12

We long to see our lives whole, to know that they matter. We wonder whether our many activities might ever come together in a way of life that is good for ourselves and others. Lacking a vision of a l...

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Everyday Pain

Author

Alan Noble

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Scripture

Job 2:11-13, Ecclesiastes 9:11-12, Lamentations 3:19-26, Luke 16:19-31, James 1:2-4, Psalm 34:17-18

I’ve known a lot of people who have lived painful, tragic lives. When I was young, I assumed these people were abnormal. Their suffering was the exception that proved the rule that a well-lived life i...

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Author

Albert Einstein

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Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing...

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Finding God in the Slowness of Life

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A. J. Swoboda & Nijay K. Gupta

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We admit that embracing slowness is hard . But slowness transforms us. One of our favorite theologians, Dr. John Goldingay, served for decades as a professor of Old Testament theology. Goldingay ...

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Author

Victor Hugo

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Scripture

Matthew 7:24-27, James 4:13-15, Psalm 90:12 , Proverbs 16:3, Proverbs 21:5, Nehemiah 2:11-18

He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out the plan, carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life.

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Author

Craig Dykstra And Dorothy Bass

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We long to see our lives whole and to know that they matter. We wonder whether our many activities might ever come together in a way of life that is good for ourselves and others. Are we really living...

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Sometimes Serving the Poor Can Be…Messy

Author

Kevin Blue

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Scripture

Philippians 2:5-7, Luke 14:12-14, Hebrews 13:2

Kevin Blue has spent much of his ministry career serving the poor in inner-city Los Angeles. In this excerpt he describes working with a war vet named Clarence: Richard, Tim, Caroline and Ellen move...

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A Bit-Part in a Story of Redemption

Author

Kevin Blue

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Scripture

Proverbs 19:17, Matthew 25:40, Galatians 6:9, Luke 14:13-14, James 2:15-17

Kevin Blue has spent much of his ministry career serving the poor in inner-city Los Angeles. This reflection show how the investment in the poor can pay big dividends: Loving the poor has cost me so...

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Gracious God, we don’t live as Christ

Author

Austin D. Hill

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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...

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A Life Changed by a Stolen Gideon Bible

Author

Andy Cook

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Steve May tells the story of “Dee,” who grew up in east Tennessee in an affluent, but unchurched home. Dee’s time at college involved as much wild living as it did studying, and soon her life became a...

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Author

Thomas Merton

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Scripture

Genesis 22:1-14, Exodus 3:1-12 , Isaiah 6:1-8, John 12:24-26, Romans 6:3-11, Psalm 46:10

To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance into a higher life. It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we...

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The Danger of Service Alone

Author

Thomas Merton

Keywords

Scripture

Philippians 2:3-8, Colossians 3:23-24, Mark 10:42-45, 1 John 4:19, Luke 10:38-42

The fact that our works are done in the service of God is not enough, by itself, to prevent us from losing our interior life if we let them devour all our time and all our strength. Work is good and n...

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Life is Vulnerable, Like a bird

Author

Henri J. M. Nouwen

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Scripture

Deuteronomy 32:10-11, 1 Kings 19:3-9, Isaiah 42:3, Matthew 18:1-5, 2 Corinthians 4:7-10, Psalm 139:13-16

Life is precious. Not because it is unchangeable, like a diamond, but because it is vulnerable, like a little bird. To love life means to love its vulnerability, asking for care, attention, guidance, ...

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The Messy Middle

Author

William Bridges

Keywords

Crises

Scripture

2 Corinthians 4:8-9, Hebrews 10:23, Romans 12:2, Psalm 37:23-24, Philippians 1:6, Isaiah 43:19, Ecclesiastes 3:1

The Messy Middle In his classic work Transitions, author and professor William Bridges shares an excellent anecdote about life in crisis: it can happen at any time and in a myriad of ways. It also de...

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Living One-Thousand Lives in Christ

Author

Samuel Craig

Keywords

Christ was led by His love for others into the world, to forget Himself in the needs of others, to sacrifice self once for all upon the altar of sympathy. Self-sacrifice brought Christ into the world....

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