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Worldview Defined
Just as the word itself suggests, a worldview is an overall view of the world. It’s not a physical view of the world, like the sight of planet Earth you might get from an orbiting space station. Rathe... -
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If you see a thing whole—it seems that it’s always beautiful. Planets, lives… But up close a world’s all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life is a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern. You ne... -
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To frame is to put a language boundary around our experience. It is to name what happens in particular ways, to say how we see the world, and to see the world how we say it is. Framing includes tellin... -
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We don’t know what’s going on here. If these tremendous events are random combinations of matter run amok, the yield of millions of monkeys at millions of typewriters, then what is it in us, hammered ... -
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The CNN Effect
In the 1990s, political scientists began to study what they called the “CNN Effect.” Breathless, twenty-four-hour media coverage makes it considerably harder for politicians and CEOs to be anything bu... -
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Taking Inventory
Parker Palmer’s book Let Your Life Speak arrested my heart a few years back. It begins with a poem by William Stafford, “Ask Me”, that begs this question: “Some time when the river is ice ask me mista... -
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My worldview, my philosophy, my attitudes, my relationships, my parenting, my marriage – everything has been transformed by my relationship with Christ. -
lectionary
Fourth Sunday of Easter
Preaching Commentary A Letter from Exile To understand this section of Revelation, we have to remember that it was written by someone in exile to communities who were suffering for their faith. Whe... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Revelation 7:9-17
A Letter from Exile To understand this section of Revelation, we have to remember that it was written by someone in exile to communities who were suffering for their faith. When we read Revelation 2-... -
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What Determines Happiness?
What Determines Happiness? Imagine a movie theater full of a hundred people. These hundred individuals represent the full continuum of happiness: Some are exceptionally happy, others less so, and ... -
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A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses. -
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Sight without Vision
Helen Keller, the blind-and-deaf woman who made history by learning to overcome her disabilities, was once asked if there was anything worse than being blind. She answered, “Oh yes! There is something... -
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It's in our biology to trust what we see with our eyes. This makes living in a carefully edited, overproduced and photoshopped world very dangerous. -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Ephesians 4:1-16 (Guide A)
Background to the Letter and Passage Paul’s letter to the Ephesians was probably intended for wider distribution and use among the various churches around Ephesus. As such, there is no particular cri... -
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We think in generalities, but we live in detail. -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, John 6:56-69
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A Hard Saying There are (at least) two leaps that Jesus’s listeners have to make here. One is the reality of the incarnation and the o... -
lectionary
16th Sunday after Pentecost
Introduction Our text falls within a larger section (Luke 16) in which Jesus deals head-on with questions of money, specifically the need to choose God over mammon (the worship of money), in other wo... -
lectionary
14th Sunday after Pentecost
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A Hard Saying There are (at least) two leaps that Jesus’s listeners have to make here. One is the reality of the incarnation and the o... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Genesis 12:1-9
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... -
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Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus. -
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A Smallness We Find Comforting
South of where I live by just over an hour is Henry Cowell State Park. The park features redwood trees that are upward of 1,600 years old. For some perspective, only seven nations on earth are older t... -
blog
Two New Year Prayers for Church Services: A Collect and Prayers of the People
Are you thinking of adding New Year prayers in your church services? Below you'll find two complete, ready-to-use prayers: a collect for the New Year and responsive prayers of the people looking b... -
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The Value of a Stradivarius & our Answering our True Calling
Have you ever heard of a Stradivarius violin? It’s the gold standard of violins—instantly recognizable and famously expensive. These aren’t $29.95 instruments. One sold for $1 million, another for $4 ... -
blog
My First Experience of Unhurried Time with God
I’ve often shared the story of my first experience of solitude and silence at the beginning of 1990. It was led by one of my mentors, Wayne Anderson, as part of a class I was taking at Fuller Seminary... -
blog
Ageism Everywhere All at Once — An Opportunity for the Church
Earlier this month Michelle Yeoh won the Best Actress Academy Award for her work in the film Everything Everywhere All at Once . In her moving acceptance speech, she said, “For all the little boys an... -
blog
On Winning? Considering Kevin Durant and Anthony Bourdain
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Albert Camus Two events recently collided in my mind and coalesced into this short essay: The first was a relatively in... -
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Your “Spiritual” Life or Just “Life”
Too often people think about their “spiritual lives” as just one more aspect of their existence, alongside and largely separate from their “financial lives” or their “vocational lives.” Periodically t... -
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Defining What it Means to be Human
On August 20 and September 5, 1977, two spacecraft named Voyager were launched. Eventually leaving the solar system and heading into deep space, they represented a revolutionary and promising breakthr... -
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The Importance of our Eyes to our Spiritual Health
Our eyes are remarkable and accurate signs of our inner spiritual health. They narrow into slits when we hate, envy, and scheme. They open wide in wonder when we live in adoration and generosity. W... -
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Like the eye which sees everything in front of it and never sees itself, faith is occupied with the Object upon which it rests and pays no attention to itself at all. While we are looking at God we do...
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