change on Urban Areas

God of grace, power and glory–Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer–and our Father: When we’re tempted to think it’s all up to us: to change the world, to overcome evil, to establish Your kingdom, to make ...

God–our Father, Lord and indwelling Spirit of grace and power: Thank you for hearing us when we pray whether in songs of rejoicing or through tears of sorrow. Thank you for gifts–for the gifts of musi...

[W]e cannot really solve the problem of our world’s injustices by merely giving a little more of our surplus to fight hunger. More deeply, we need to be freed from our reliance on material consumption...

The most powerful choices we will make in our lives are not about specific decisions but about patterns of life: the nudges and disciplines that will shape all our other choices. This is especially tr...

Does it ever seem like the world around us is changing at breakneck speed? Well, it turns out, you’re right. A team of researchers have concluded that the Western world’s “environment and social order...

In 1829, Martin Van Buren, then governor of New York, wrote the following to the president: The canal system of this country is being threatened by the spread of a new form of transportation known as...

We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.

At root, change means the partial or total abandonment of the norms, safeties, and patterns of behavior that make our lives manageable.

I am convinced that the scourge of our scientific and technological age is depersonalization. There is a heartbeat pulsating at the center of the universe, giving life and meaning to everything, but o...

Life has become a smorgasbord with an endless array of dishes. And more important still, choice is no longer just a state of mind. Choice has become a value, a priority, a right. To be modern is to be...

Road Trips in Scripture While the definitions of “oceans” and “lakes” had to be qualified a bit in order to relate biblical locations to our present-day vacations, road trips—like mountains—can be fo...

Crises, and pressures for change, confront individuals and their groups at all levels, ranging from single people, to teams, to businesses, to nations, to the whole world. Crises may arise from extern...

In order to exercise leadership on that challenge, they had to go beyond what people expected of them, risk testing some relationships, and move themselves and their organizations into unfamiliar terr...

There are at least three kinds of changes we face: those we wouldn’t choose but we can see coming, those we choose ourselves, and those that flood our homes at two in the morning.

In the late 1800’s, no business matched the financial and political dominance of the railroad. Trains dominated the transportation industry of the United States, moving both people and goods throughou...

A family from a remote area was making their first visit to a big city. They checked in to a grand hotel and stood in amazement at the impressive sight. Leaving the reception desk they came to the ele...

Road Trips in Scripture While the definitions of “oceans” and “lakes” had to be qualified a bit in order to relate biblical locations to our present-day vacations, road trips—like mountains—can be fo...

Times of crisis, of disruption or constructive change, are not only predictable, but desirable. They mean growth. Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

Lord, where we are wrong, make us willing to change; where we are right, make us easy to live with.

It's the most unhappy people who most fear change.

To change one’s life: start immediately,  Do it flamboyantly,  No exceptions.

Here is the uncomfortable truth: Humans run to a much slower evolutionary clock than our inventions. To use an engineering term, we are the “gating factor” that keeps a process from running faster. It...

This scripture guide is adapted from the Summer Settings sermon guide Road Trips II . For more Summer Settings sermon guides, click below. Saul's Confident Error Last week, we considered A...

Cultural transformation in a church or organization must go beyond interpersonal models of changing “one person at a time,” which dominates Western evangelical thinking. The goals of reconciliation ne...

O Holy Spirit, descend plentifully into my heart. Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling and scatter there Thy cheerful beams.

There is no improving the future without disturbing the present.

O God who will not let us go, we confess that we have been so wrapped up in ourselves that have not loved You with our whole hearts, and we have not loved our neighbors as we love ourselves. By Your g...

Saul's Confident Error Last week, we considered Abram and the way that God may send us out on a journey, waiting to see his will without knowing the destination.  Today we move forward to Saul on...

Yes, we mark our heads with ashes—public shows of piety are not in themselves evil. But we must guard our motivations and do most of our spiritual work in private, because the privacy of those acts re...

People who blame things rarely change things. Blame is an unassailable change-avoidance strategy.