relationships and community on Authenticity

Churches want to hear nice, optimistic messages, free of the mention of sin or a call for repentance. Churches want nice, lean programs, directed at nice, clean families, leading to growth without sac...

Ralph Waldo Emerson describes a true friend as a person with whom I can think aloud. This absence of the need to put on a façade is an essential and foundational aspect of all genuine friendships. He ...

Prayer of Adoration We praise you, Lord for you are all-wise and all-powerful, faithful, loving and gracious, holy, just, merciful, constant and pure, omnipresent, intimate and immortal. You are big...

Pastor: Who are you? Ministers: We are God’s people, called by God’s love in Jesus the Christ, not because we are adequate or worthy, but because of God’s ac­ceptance of us. Pastor: Why have you c...

It is a spiritual disaster for a man to rest content with his exterior identity, with his passport picture of himself. Is his life merely in his fingerprints?

One Ash Wednesday a decade ago, when I was new to Anglicanism, I knelt at a rail as Fr. Thomas, my priest, smeared a black cross on each forehead. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall ret...

Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.

Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will present...

Cook the truth in charity until it tastes sweet.

Religion says, "I obey; therefore I am accepted." Christianity says, "I’m accepted, therefore I obey."

Your desire for more of God than you have right now, your longing for love, your need for deeper levels of spiritual transformation than you have experienced so far is the truest thing about you. You ...

One of the great truths in life is that you can only go so far as you can be trusted. Every time a well-known pastor has a moral failure, the church’s reputation is hurt. This is at least partially wh...

How is genuineness expressed? Not in words. What you say to your partner is far less important than how you say it—with a smile, a shrug, a frown, or a glare. Consider this: nonverbal communication ac...

But the man who is not afraid to admit everything that he sees to be wrong with himself, and yet recognizes that he may be the object of God's love precisely because of his shortcomings, can begin...

There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better or worse as his portion; that though ...