faith and work on Invitation

Ron Roheiser points out three images for retreat used in Scripture that meet us in our yearning; all of them apply in different ways at different times.  ● There is the lonely place to which Jesus ...

Prayer of Adoration God, Almighty – holy, gracious, truthful and loving, we’re drawn by Your invitation to enjoy Your love, an invitation to feel Your touch and hear Your voice, to taste and see tha...

In the midst of your striving Your labor Your responsibilities Your hustle Hear the invitation, “Come to the Feast!” Come, eat and drink Come, rest and rejoice Come, dance in the presence of our Gene...

When Albert Berte Thorwaldsen, the renowned Dutch sculptor, finished the clay model of his statue of Christ with arms raised in blessing, he left it to harden overnight in his studio. The next morni...

The is an invitation to enter delight. The , when experienced as God intended, is the best day of our lives. Without question or thought, it is the best day of the week. It is the day we anticipate on...

After attending a conference in New York City, a pastoral colleague, Reid Kapple, was flying home to Kansas City on US Airways flight 745 when the plane suddenly lost cabin pressure. As the plane desc...

Brandon and Faith Lee, who started Bird and Branch Coffee, are what faithful witnesses look like. When they sat down across from my wife and me, they had a dream to start a coffee shop that would serv...

What differentiates a weekly Sabbath from a vacation? Quite a bit, in fact. When my son was four, he learned how to put his head underwater when swimming. Elliot can hold his breath for a good ten sec...

People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To b...

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...

Leader: Come, let us be about our preparations for a new advent of love among us. people: The wastelands of life around us cannot shut out the promise of life-giving water. leader: Hatred and warf...

Invited to write his own epitaph: He finally met his deadline

Option: Those who are looking for work are invited to stand. Persons may also stand on behalf of a friend or loved one who is looking for work. Those seated around them lay a hand of blessing and supp...

O gracious Father, who opens your hand and fills all living things with abundance: Bless the lands and waters, and multiply the harvests of the world; send your Spirit into the world, that it may rene...

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

Lord Jesus–You’ve come, are coming and will come again. Whether we know it or not, we live on the edge of Your advent every moment of every day either with anticipation or with anxiety. As if stumblin...

Hark! the voice of Jesus crying, “Who will go and work today? Fields are white and harvests waiting, Who will bear the sheaves away?” Loud and long the Master calls us, Rich reward he offers free; ...

[A time comes] when we yearn for more of God than our schedules will allow.

Bit by intelligible bit, a vocation lets us express our healthiest instincts, our noblest desires… In small things and in large, we can attend to the haunting inner summons of our soul.

One Sunday morning in a more traditional worship service, a rather verbose minister stepped up to the pulpit and announced to the congregation, "I've been told that I'll be moving on to l...

God calls people. Whether it is the calling of Abraham to leave the land of Ur and go he knew not where, or the calling of Moses, confronted with the burning bush, or the calling of Isaiah who encount...

When the telegraph was the fastest means of long-distance communication, a young man applied for a job as a Morse code operator. Answering an ad in the newspaper, he went to the address that was liste...

Almighty and most merciful Father, giver of every good and perfect gift, we give you thanks for blessing us so richly with your good Word and the holy Sacraments, and supplying so abundantly all our d...

Contemplation is also the response to a call: a call from Him Who has no voice, and yet Who speaks in everything that is, and Who, most of all, speaks in the depths of our own being: for we ourselves ...

Gracious God, we confess that we do not always listen to your calling for us. Instead we carry on with our busy lives, not being mindful of your voice, calling us to live for more than ourselves. Plea...

The Sabbath is a gift we do not know how to receive. In a world of doing, going, and producing, we have no use for a gift that invites us to stop. But that is the original gift: a gift of rest.

A vision we give to others of who and what they could become has power when it echoes what the spirit has already spoken into their souls.

Blessed Jesus The Carpenter, the Rabbi, The Healer, the Good Shepherd, The One who washes feet, the Ruler of all that is seen and unseen We bless you and thank you for the good gift of you and the go...

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery ...