living on Status

Guests? Or Hosts? After picking up the first verse of the chapter in order to provide a setting for Jesus’ words, this week’s gospel reading contains two teachings. The first (v. 7-11) is addressed t...

Guests? Or Hosts? After picking up the first verse of the chapter in order to provide a setting for Jesus’ words, this week’s gospel reading contains two teachings. The first (v. 7-11) is addressed t...

Context 1 Peter is traditionally attributed to the apostle Peter. It is addressed to Christian communities in diaspora, scattered across Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), who were experiencing social m...

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...

Context 1 Peter is traditionally attributed to the apostle Peter. It is addressed to Christian communities in diaspora, scattered across Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey) who were experiencing social ma...

Introduction Easter stands out from every other day. It’s time to celebrate and to reflect: how will you “preach the resurrection” and proclaim the new life we have in Jesus Christ? How do we invite ...

Angela Merkel breaks almost every stereotype we have about world leaders. Her appearances and actions are plain and modest.  She's humble. She couldn't care less about showmanship or fancy dis...

Introduction Only John’s Gospel tells us that Jesus washed his disciple’s feet during his last meal with them. The other texts for this day remember the Passover and the context it sets for Jesus’s w...

Repetition is the reality and the seriousness of life

Dangerous levels of exhaustion usually accumulate over a longer period of time in which we are consistently living beyond human limits, functioning outside our giftedness, or not paying attention to t...

Almighty God, we trust in our own strength, abilities, and resources. We think too highly of what we have to offer this world. The truth is we cannot do anything without your strength and all we have ...

...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 ...

There are people who do not live their present life; it is as if they were preparing themselves, with all their zeal, to live some other life, but not this one. And while they do this, time goes by an...

Almighty God, we take pride in our self-sufficiency while we look down on the weak who cannot provide for themselves. We praise others for their efforts, yet we demand perfection from our own families...

Living for what gives or maintains the greatest amount of personal comfort is our long-established habit. At the core, that’s what comfort is—it’s a habit, a way of life. Comfort has become the defaul...

I like to describe spiritual leadership as living a grace-paced life in the midst of a driven culture; living at a vital, life-giving, peaceful pace while remaining engaged and active in the kingdom w...

Our mission is the mission of Jesus Christ.  He lived as an ordinary human being. We will care for the common life of humanity. He served men and women. We are committed to working for human wel...

We all live between two worlds. We are planted here on earth while our hope is in heaven. We are given work to do in temporary soil that, we’re told, has the potential to spring up into unending fruit...

O God, who gives to every man and woman their work, and through their labors does accomplish your purposes upon earth: Grant your blessing, we beg you, to those who are engaged in the work and busines...

A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.

God uses the nobodies to show himself to be somebody. God uses the nothings to show himself to be something. And maybe you feel like a nobody, a nothing. My friend, you're the one God's chosen...

Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.

Have you ever seen As Good As It Gets, the late-nineties film starring Jack Nicholson? In it, Nicholson plays a cranky, misanthropic writer in New York City, snapping at anyone who crosses his p...

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

Introduction This text is used in the first week of Advent, but preparing for Jesus' return isn't something for just one time of the year. For a treatment that is more focused on Advent, see ...

Advertising how humble we are will raise some eyebrows. Advertising your humility with a vanity license plate on a luxury car takes a special sort of hutzpah.  But that’s what I (Stu) saw today whi...

Faith is a how and, more specifically, a way of living in light of an event.

For a long time it seemed to me that real life was about to begin, but there was always some obstacle in the way. Something had to be got through first, some unfinished business; time still to be serv...

“It always comes down to just two choices. Get busy living, or get busy dying.”

Do not scrutinize so closely whether you are doing much or little, ill or well, so long as what you do is not sinful and that you are heartily seeking to do everything for God. Try as far as you can t...