living on Open Minds

Living God, our souls thirst for living water. Open our hearts and minds to your Word this day, so that, like the Samaritan woman, we may have a grace-filled encounter with you, the Living Water.

Preaching Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Passage Context - Divided Kingdom, Common Struggles The prophet, Jeremiah, conducted the bulk of his ministry in...

God who is near at hand, Draw us humbly into your present with the expectation you will listen and we will be heard. By the power of your Holy Spirit, soften our hearts, reminding us that we are your...

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.

Calm us now, O Lord, into a quietness that heals and listens. Open wounded hearts to the balm of your Word. Speak to us in clear tones so that we might feel our spirits leap for joy and skip with hope...

Breathing is the bridge between the brain and the body.

On retreat we stop avoiding the pain of the disconnect between our deepest desires and the way we are actually living. We have time and space to reflect on our life rhythms to see if they are really w...

Faith is a redirecting of our sight, a getting out of the focus of our own vision and getting God into focus.

The priest Henri Nouwen learned humility on a mission trip to South America. He went expecting to pass on his wisdom to the poor and unenlightened. During his six-month stay, Nouwen concluded that a d...

Your life is in the pulpit with you Fred Craddock said, “Not everything that’s in the Bible is in the Bible .” That’s why we have, among other things, commentaries . The most helpful ones throw o...

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don’t be conformed to this world, bu...

Humble and self-forgetting we must be always, but diffident and apologetic about the gospel never.

Life does not ask what we want. It presents us with options.

...left to ourselves we lapse into a kind of collusion with entrophy, acquiescing in the general belief that things may be getting worse but that there's nothing much we can do about them. And we ...

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

As you go forth from this place, may you have the courage to confront the dark places. May you trust in God’s goodness to lead you to the living water. May you act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly ...

Ancient lens? What can we learn from the historical context? Context and Tone Paul was writing from prison to a Christian community that he didn’t establish. Rather, it was his co-laborer, Epaphr...

Our family is radical, but we are definitely not Amish—although we love to eat the fruit, vegetables, meat, and cheese produced by our Amish neighbors forty miles away in Lancaster County, Pennsylvani...

The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss – an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wi...

Intellectually we all know that we will die, but we do not really know it in the sense that the knowledge becomes a part of us. We do not really know it in the sense of living as though it were true. ...

Frank Laubach recounts the profound shift in his life that came when he wholeheartedly committed to following God’s will: Before that moment, I was barely alive—like a tree rotting from within. Bu...

Merciful Jesus Grant us courage to deny privilege to lay down favor and safety and take up the cross of opportunity and justice Merciful Jesus Grant us courage to deny consumerism to lay down conve...

Pastor: Hear what the Apostle Paul says to God’s people in Romans 12: I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and a...

The soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, self-sufficient. It knows how to survive in hard places. But it is also shy. Just like a wild animal, it seeks safety in the dense ...

The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.

Introduction Hard Sayings These hard sayings of Jesus come at the end of a section spanning two chapters (Luke 13:10-14:35). In it, Jesus’s actions and teachings are set in parallel structure: hea...

Mary was a nobody who became greater than everybody, simply because God came to her and she responded in the humblest possible way. She reasoned, she doubted, she surrendered, she connected with other...

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...

In Soul-Making , Allen Jones shares an intriguing visit to the Coptic Monastery of St. Macarius out in the Egyptian desert. There, he meets Father Jeremiah, a monk who spins tales of the desert fathe...