relationships and community on Words

Almighty God, harsh words and personal attacks can bring out the worst in us. We find ourselves spending energy on thoughts of retaliation and plans to protect ourselves. Father forgive us. We long to...

God, be all our love, all our hope, all our striving; let our thoughts and words flow from you, our daily life be in you, and every breath we take be for you. Amen.

Eternal and Glorious God, Your grace calls us toward growth and service in You. Yet today we acknowledge the many times we have forgotten Your mercy and rejected Your love. Forgive us when we sin agai...

Beware you are not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.

In The Essential Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson, the cartoon character Calvin says to his tiger friend, Hobbes, “I feel bad that I called Susie names and hurt her feelings. I’m sorry I did it.” ...

Forgiving the unforgivable is hard. So was the cross: hard words, hard wood, hard nails.

O Lord, We marvel that you would take on flesh and blood in order to be crucified, killed, and buried for us. You humbled yourself and submitted to the hatred of sinful men, accepting the thorns, the ...

Lord of Hope and God of all that’s new—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: We’re filled with wonder, gratitude, and joy inspired by the gifts of new life You freely give us. There’s the joy and wonder of eve...

We need silence in our lives. We even desire it. But when we enter into silence we encounter a lot of inner noises, often so disturbing that a busy and distracting life seems preferable to a time of s...

Myths about Faith and Work Faith is to be lived out 24-7-52. For many Christians this involves living out our faith at work. But several myths about faith and work can prevent us from being effecti...

O God, we thank you that you have not treated us as we deserve. We thank you that, though you are Creator, Judge and King, you are also Father, so that, though we are wandering children, there is alw...

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...

One of my favorite things to do is to sit on the aft deck of a boat going across the ocean and just watch the wake. It is such a beautiful, ever-changing creation as the ship continues on its path. Yo...

Let me tell you the story of a great missionary named Frank C. Laubach (1884–1970). He grew up in the farming community of Benton, PA, and served as a Congregationalist missionary in the Philippines. ...

Tertullian was an early church leader (a bishop in Carthage) in North Africa. His voluminous writing and ministry have led many to acknowledge him as the father of Latin Theology/Western Theology. Ter...

Sometimes moments of forgiveness and friendship come from unexpected places. In 2018, the comedian Pete Davidson appeared on the “Weekend Update” segment of Saturday Night Live (SNL). Davidson made a ...

Faith makes all things possible. Love makes all things easy.

Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.

Lord: In our times of weakness and our hours of need, Yours is the strength that enables us to carry on, Yours the shoulder we rest our heads upon. When our load is heavy and too much to bear, Yours a...

Leader: Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience All: bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against an...

When he said, “I am the bread of life,” he must have meant he was scattering bits of himself like a trail of crumbs leading us to speak and act and scatter forgiveness in his name to the ends of the e...

O God, Father of us all, we praise you for so binding humanity together that we must each lean upon the strength and labor of others. We ask your blessing on all men and women who have worked to build...

Pastor: “Hear then the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what wa...

The best use of life is love. The best expression of love is time. The best time to love is now.

Blessed be the tie that binds Our hearts in Christian love; The fellowship of kindred minds Is like to that above. Before the throne of God We pour our impassioned prayers; Our fears, our hopes, ...

There is the great lesson of “Beauty and the Beast”; that a thing must be loved before it is loveable.

“And in the end, we were all just humans.. drunk on the idea that love, only love, could heal our brokenness.”

For the beauty of human love Brother, sister, parent, child. Friends on earth and friends above, For all gentle thoughts and mild; Lord of all, to thee we raise, This, our hymn of grateful praise...

Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone.

Emerson once observed, Do you love me? actually means Do you see the same truth? Or at least . . . Do you care about the same truth?”