current affairs and causes on The Twelve Disciples

It is cheering to remember that Jesus Christ wandered this earth with no place to lay his head. “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his h...

Leader: King Jesus, you taught your disciples a great deal about your kingdom, and we confess that we have thought much more about our own kingdoms than about yours. In fact, you are the king over all...

Lord—You’re the God who notices. You notice a desperate woman who touches Your garments in a crowd. You notice a lonely, little tax-collector in a tree. You notice a blind man on the roadside, a widow...

One of the great leaders of the first generation after the apostles was a man named Polycarp. Polycarp, it is believed, was discipled by the apostle John and carried out a long and fruitful ministry i...

Jesus said you are to love one another as I have loved you, a love that will possibly lead to the bloody, anguished gift of yourself, a love that forgives seven times seven, that keeps no score of wro...

The Spiritual Disciplines are things that we do. We must never lose sight of this fact. It is one thing to talk piously about 'the solitude of the heart,' but if that does not somehow work its...

When we don’t meet Christ in Scripture and are not regularly being discipled by or discipling others, it is impossible to discern what being a Christian means or to cultivate a relationship with God. ...

Leader: “Now there are various kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are various kinds of service, and the same Lord.” People: “ For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members...

Christ followers were first called Christians at Antioch—about fifteen years after the birth of the church at Pentecost. There must have been something remarkable about this particular group of believ...

What he [Jesus] was attempting to instill in his disciples was the attitude of a servant: humility and a willingness to put others ahead of oneself. In that culture, washing the feet of others would s...

I found out the hard way that if we don’t disciple people, the culture sure will.

Jesus did not tell his disciples that all authority is vested in the books that they would write; he insisted that it was vested in his own person. And yet Jesus’ authority operates through the New Te...

Leader: As Jesus began his earthly ministry, he said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” People: Through the Holy Spirit, we too have ...

Leader: The word of the Lord to the prophet Isaiah says: You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and with the...

A passage often referred to in order to describe the sacrificial, countercultural quality of the early church comes to us interestingly enough, from one of its strongest critics, known later to histor...

One way to recognize whether we suffer from this disconnection is to look at our concern for people who are dirty... people who are "other"... people who don't fit the core group's i...

Isaiah 58 tells us that the Lord wants us to share our bread with the hungry, bring the homeless poor into our homes, share our clothing with those who need some and not hide ourselves from the rest o...

When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.

Like the crowds who followed Jesus, we come today from different places. We’ve had different weeks, different challenges, and different joys. And yet we come united by the risen Lord Jesus, who meets ...

The segregation within white Christianity is not fundamentally a diversity problem: it’s a discipleship problem. Addressing white Christianity’s lack of diversity without first reckoning with our disc...

Leader: Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who co...

My kids love the movie Remember the Titans . It’s the story of the integration of the TC WIlliams High School Football Team in Alexandria, Virginia, in the 1960s Civil Rights era. The white players a...

Pastor: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. All: Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Pastor: Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the...

You came to us, Word made flesh, to show us what it means to love. You came to us, Word made flesh, to teach us how to serve. You came to us, Word made flesh, to remind us to clothe the naked and fe...

I’d like us to begin with a little scene setting. So, I’m going to invite everyone who is comfortable to close their eyes. And I am transporting you to Rome, it’s approximately 60 AD. You are a commo...

People in the world naturally want to boss others. Imagine a boy beginning work with a firm. He has a lowly place and is ordered around by everyone. Do this! Do that! Every dirty job is his. He is the...

Cultural diversity was built into the Christian faith…in Acts 15, which declared that the new gentile Christians didn’t have to enter Jewish culture…. The converts had to work out…a Hellenistic way of...

Jesus showed his solidarity with the poor through his teaching, parables and lifestyle. It is no coincidence that in his very first recorded message he referenced the poor… Imagine God incarnate makin...

Gracious God, your Son Jesus came not be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many. He is our Good Shepherd, whose leadership is less about the love of power, and more about the ...

We have seen some gatekeeping or fencing-the-table language already beginning to rear its head in this context. One needed to be baptized to take the meal; one needed to repent to take the meal; one n...