the christian calendar on Growth

In describing whether it is possible for us to live like Jesus, pastor John Stott shares an illustration from William Temple: It is no good giving me a play like Hamlet or King Lear, and telling me ...

No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.

It is a sprinting, squirting, shoving age.

The promised Messiah, whose voice sounds like rushing waters, who holds the key to death and Hades, also grew in secret in Mary’s womb. He kicked and elbowed as all babies do, and came at the appointe...

You may think of quotes as a great thing to add a little gravity, insight, or humor to your sermons. And they are! But have you considered Lent quotes as a jumping-off point for sermon ideas? We pick...

Do you detect a little discomfort in your congregation when it comes to Lent? Maybe you feel it, too? We dedicate a whole season to repentance, confession, and spiritual disciplines like fasting, lead...

At start of spring I open a trench in the ground. I put into it the winter’s accumulation of paper, pages I do not want to read. Again, useless words, fragments, errors. And I put into it the contents...

God's movement is often abrupt and unsettling rather than predictable and settling.

In his book, Scary Close , Donald Miller acknowledges that over time he developed a mask, or a persona that kept even those closest to him from experiencing with him. As he began to peel back layers ...

In this season of Lent, O God, unsettle us. Increase in us that sense of gnawing that arises from the incongruity between our lives and the life to which you call us, and transform us in newness. Amen...

Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.

The fruit of the Spirit is not push, drive, climb, grasp and trample. Life is more than a climb to the top of the heap.

ONE: Jesus said, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;  ALL: Come, Holy Spirit, Come ONE: Jesus said, “and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria...

Politicians compete for the highest offices. Business tycoons scramble for a bigger and bigger piece of the pie. Armies march and scientists study and philosophers philosophise and preachers preach an...

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.

Pentecost . . . The Holy Spirit fills the disciples and they speak in tongues they likely do not understand themselves. It is an uncontrolled public witness – uncontrolled by human agendas – as well a...

Leader: The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. All: The light has shined on those who lived in the land of the shadow of death. Leader: You have multiplied the nation. You have...

As you continue in this season of waiting, may your waiting refine you. May you grow in the likeness of Jesus each day while we await his return. And may the love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus ...

The season of Epiphany is an invitation to follow Jesus into the ways of gratitude and joy,. We are no longer bound by the dissatisfaction of our consumer culture that tells us to keep striving for mo...

In the Christian story God descends to reascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still, if embryologists are right, to reca...

God takes 40 weeks to create a human life in the incubator of a mother’s body. As the tendons are woven around the joints and the lungs find strength to eventually breathe air, the parents wait with a...

As I was trying to think of something to write for this weekly email, I began to wonder if living in this season of life actually prepares us to better experience the Advent season. We live in a time...

Advent is patience. It's how God has made us a people of promise, in a world of impatience.

Waiting is a period of learning. The longer we wait, the more we hear about him for whom we are waiting.

Pentecost is an invitation to dream. For when a community of faith quits dreaming dreams, it has little to offer either its members or the wider world. These dreams involve adopting a new perspective ...

The birth of the child into the darkness of the world made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living it.

God is coming! God is coming! All the element we swim in, this existence, echoes ahead the advent. God is coming! Can you feel it?

Since failure is our unforgivable sin, we are willing to ignore all forms of deviance in people if they just achieve the success symbols which we worship.

Anticipation lifts the heart. Desire is created to be fulfilled – perhaps not all at once, more likely in slow stages. Isaiah uttered his prophetic words about the renewal of the natural Creation into...

In the midst of frenzied shopping and end-of-year weariness, we spread out a purple cloth,(a purple cloth is spread over the communion table) read again the ancient stories,(a Bible is placed on th...