the christian calendar on Planning

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...

Joining the Pilgrims on the Way to Jerusalem For most Christians observing Lent, Holy Week marks the height of the drama of the Christian year. The pilgrims who have made the long journey through Len...

The Need to Pray In light of the shocking Hamas attack on October 7 and the Israeli response, urgent prayer is needed by Christians for the people of Israel and Palestine. In numbers, 1,400 people we...

So, you’re staring at your laptop screen. It’s later at night than you’d like to admit. The Word document is blank and that vertical bar is flashing, daring you to write the first word. You need to st...

Your Easter morning services should do two things: put on a rip-roaring celebration for the most joyful event in history and invite newcomers and Christmas-and-Easter attenders to join in, building a ...

Recovering from Holy Week Whew. I’m dragging just a little. It’s a few days after Easter. The season has been full of richness, but I’m a bit tired. I’ve written daily Lenten devotionals, newsletter...

A Joyful Easter Proclamation John Chrysostom (344-407) was the Bishop of Constantinople and is remembered as a Doctor of the Church. He was a renowned preacher (his name, Chrysostomos means "...

I have a friend who teaches in the upper peninsula in Michigan. He has one of those schools that run from kindergarten all the way up through eighth grade, including special ed. One of his students wa...

The church set aside this four-week pre-Christmas season as a time of spiritual preparation for Christ’s coming. It is a time of quiet anticipation. If Christ is going to come again into our hearts, t...

The church prepares our devotion before Christmas Day with four Sundays in Advent, which bring Christ nearer and nearer to us and remind us that he is coming to enable us by a further examination of o...

Is Advent a preparatory fast in preparation for the liturgical commemoration of the historical birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, or is Advent a season unto itself. A sacrament of the end of time begun in t...

Faith is a voluntary anticipation.

The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before… .What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you ...

Early Christian writing has the ends of the world upon it, hence its emphasis on fulfillment, fullness of time: the shape of the world-plot can now be seen.

Pentecost Came Like Wildfire I’m lying on an ice pack early this morning, doing my back exercises and listening to  Pray as You Go , a tool for meditation, with monastery bells, music, and a Bible re...

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...

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...

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...

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

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

The Necessity of Memory Memory—or, more actively,  remembering , plays an all-important role in our lives. Our culture likes us to focus on  the now, "looking forward rather than looking back&q...

Before the hero enters, people anticipate his coming…Who’s coming? What’s his name? What’ll he be like? What’s he going to do?…So kindled are many emotions that good hearts break into song both in hea...

Loving God ~ Father, Son and Holy Spirit: We are a people who are waiting: waiting to celebrate Messiah’s birth; waiting to see what this day – and every day – holds as Your blessings for us; and wait...

A Digital Silent Retreat This spiritual exercise is from Laura Murray, ordained pastor, spiritual director, and TPW contributor. Laura is sharing a "Digital Silent Retreat" with us. We en...

An End to Waiting Advent is all about waiting. But the waiting is almost over. Christmas is almost here. The church is decorated, the songs have been picked, and the prayers selected. The sermon is ...

Anxiety is the handmaiden of contemporary ambition.

Hell is full of good intentions or desires.

Not long ago, just as the season of Lent had got underway, a friend complained to me, “I know it’s Lent, but where’s the joy?” It is easy to understand why Lent is often misunderstood as a period of s...

A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes... and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.

It was not suddenly and unannounced that Jesus came into the world. He came into a world that had been prepared for Him. The whole Old Testament is the story of a special preparation. . . . Only when ...