faith and work on Divisions

We may have more disagreements with nonbelievers, but our disagreements with fellow believers are more problematic and more emotionally charged.

First, we do not believe that strong convictions cause incivility. Instead, we believe poorly formed convictions cause incivility.

In his Rule for monasteries, St. Benedict considered grumbling a serious offense against community life. He wrote, “If a disciple grumbles, not only aloud but in his heart … his action will not ...

Deacon or other leader In peace, let us pray to the Lord, saying, "Lord, have mercy" ( or "Kyrie eleison"). For the holy Church of God, that it may be filled with truth and lov...

I don’t divide the world into the weak and the strong, or the successes and failures. . . . I divide the world into learners and nonlearners.

The streams of religion run deep or shallow, according as the banks of the Sabbath are kept up or neglected.

Just as the church needs members with different skills, our world must have various forms of labor, interdependent and thus valuable. A world full of ministers would be without churches, bread for the...

We are each other's harvest; we are each other's business; we are each other's magnitude and bond.

Shalom is meant to be both personal (emphasizing our relationships with others) and structural (replacing systems where shalom has been broken or which produce broken shalom, such as war-or greed-driv...

Worship gives us a workable structure for life. The psalm says, “Jerusalem, well-built city, built as a place for worship! The city to which the tribes ascend, all God’s tribes go up to worship.” Jeru...

We swim in an ocean of feedback. Each year in the United States alone, every schoolchild will be handed back as many as 300 assignments, papers, and tests. Millions of kids will be assessed as they tr...

We swim in an ocean of feedback. Each year in the United States alone, every schoolchild will be handed back as many as 300 assignments, papers, and tests. Millions of kids will be assessed as they tr...

Spirit of the Living God—Fall afresh on us this day. Spirit of God present and powerful, Spirit of God fruitful and faithful, Spirit of God filling and fulfilling us as children of the Father and foll...

The word vocation is a rich one, having to address the wholeness of life, the range of relationships and responsibilities. Work, yes, but also families, and neighbors, and citizenship, locally and glo...

Work and let him give the fruits therefore! Rule, and let him prosper it! Battle, and let him give victory! Preach, and let him make hearts devout!”

Authority exercised with humility, and obedience accepted with delight are the very lines along which our spirits live.

To a man who lives unto God nothing is secular, everything is sacred. He puts on his workday garment and it is a vestment to him: he sits down to his meal and it is a sacrament; he goes forth to his l...

Sunday is the golden clasp that binds together the volume of the week.

All the succession of time, all the changes in nature, all the varieties of light and darkness, the thousand thousands of accidents in the world, and every contingency to every one, preaches our funer...

Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to him. You will eat the fruit of your labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours. And [w]hatever you do, work at it with all your h...

One of my favorite sections of Home Depot is the power garden tool department. Even though I have all the tools I need, I still like browsing through Home Depot’s collection of power mowers, chainsaws...

There is so much more to sabbath than what we stop doing, but for the purposes of disciplining power, simply stopping matters a great deal.

Multitasking is the drive to be more than we are, to control more than we do, to extend our power and our effectiveness. Such practice yields a divided self, with full attention given to nothing.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence.

While I am not one to see a demon behind every bush or spiritual warfare in every difficulty, the fact is that we are regularly engaged in the struggle against good and evil—whether we know it or not....

O God, you have bound us together in this bundle of life; give us grace to understand how our lives depend upon the courage, the industry, the honesty, and the integrity of our fellows; that we may be...

In determining your leadership competence, your ability to delegate effectively is far more important than your innate intelligence.

The Great Wall of China was an immense and costly project, built with tremendous effort and resources, designed to provide security and protection. Yet, within a few years of its completion, it was br...

The earth had been completely unformed and empty; in the six-day process of development God had formed it and filled it—but not completely. People must now carry on the work of development: by being f...

Heavenly Father, we confess that we are unable to do all the work that you wish for us to do. We are held back by our own desires and our own apprehensions. We know that you make us bearers of your im...