people on Pastoral Calling

The Scottish pastor Ian MacLaren (1850–1907), renowned for his stories set in rural Scotland, was once asked near the end of his career what he would have done differently. His response was both simpl...

Father God, you see us; you have compassion; and you care for your greatest creation – people. You have also called us to notice, to listen, and to love others. Yet in our selfishness, we have ignored...

Go, as God’s own people and proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light: Once you were not a people,             but now you are God’s people; once you had...

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...

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...

Pastor: Who are you? Ministers: We are God’s people, called by God’s love in Jesus the Christ, not because we are adequate or worthy, but because of God’s ac­ceptance of us. Pastor: Why have you c...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A Diverse Early Church From the start, the early church was a mix of people from different backgrounds, traditions, and classes.  We se...

Pastor: O people, return to the Holy One your God, who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. All: Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. ...

It takes a great deal of freedom and love to be therapeutic with a group. Many years ago when Emil Brunner, the great Swiss theologian, was lecturing in this country, it was reported that when he prea...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? A Diverse Early Church From the start, the early church was a mix of people from different backgrounds, traditions, and classes.  We...

Go as God’s people Planted firmly in his love Watered by his word And bearing the fruit of faith

Oh Lord, our Lord, When you called your child Abraham out of Ur, You were beginning a new project in human history. You were creating a new people. A people who would be known as salt and light, A peo...

Pastor: Lord, our heavenly Father, You never refuse the cries of Your children. In the name of our Lord Jesus, hear our prayers this day:  You founded Your holy Christian Church through faith, establ...

A Multi-faceted Church Who loses by the church and parachurch’s lack of unity and cooperation? Absolutely everyone : congregations, ministry organizations, ministry leaders, individual believers . ....

The story goes about a young man (or woman!) with dreams of growing a small church nestled in rural Oklahoma. Despite his relentless efforts, the church continued to teeter on the edge of extinction a...

Statistics show that 80 percent of new pastors leave the ministry within five years. A friend once remarked, “If they were able to pastor churches without people, they might last ten years.” Most past...

If we want to connect with people, we can be like the census taker who had driven many miles down a remote country road to reach a mountain cabin. As he pulled up, a woman sitting on the porch yelled ...

We bring before you, O Lord, the troubles and perils of people and nations, the sighing of prisoners and captives, the sorrows of the bereaved, the necessities of strangers, the helplessness of the we...

Lord God, You have called us to yourself and made us into a people. We belong to you, and we belong to one another. But in our self-focused lives, we have forgotten that. We have lived for ourselves. ...

We are people of desire. We want things. We long for things. It is primal to our nature to yearn. As Saint Augustine reflected, “The whole life of the good Christian is a holy longing. . . . That is o...

The Greek word for the gathered church offers some insight into how the apostles saw their gatherings. Though the language offered a variety of options for words to describe the gathering church, the ...

The guillemot, a small Arctic seabird, nests in dense colonies on the rocky cliffs of the North Atlantic and Arctic. Thousands of these birds gather in tight spaces, with hundreds of females laying th...

Written almost a hundred years ago, this excerpt from the Reverend John W. Rilling points out one of the main reasons we continue to observe Lent, a period of repentance and discipline for many who ca...

O Lord and Father of the household of faith, we thank you for the gift of faith worked within us by your Holy Spirit. We thank you for having called us to yourself, for consecrating us to your ser...

O Lord, Hear My Prayer (LSB 780) Copyright © 1982 Ateliers et Presses de Taizé, Taizé Community, France; admin. GIA Publications, Inc. Used by permission: LSB Hymn License .NET, no. 100012911. ...

Deacon or other leader With all our heart and with all our mind, let us pray to the Lord, saying "Lord, have mercy." For the peace from above, for the loving-kindness of God, and for the ...

In a November 1882 sermon on 1 John 2, the renowned pastor and preacher C. H. Spurgeon offers a profound insight into the nature of Christian maturity. His remarks come as part of his exposition on th...

Pastor: For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was no...

You ought to.” “You need to.” “You’ve got to.” “You’re supposed to.” “You better.” Do these sorts of exhortations sound familiar? Perhaps you have heard admonitions such as these from the pulpit, from...

Pastor: Let us pray for the whole people of God in Christ Jesus and for all people according to their needs. O Lord, our heavenly Father, receive our thanks that You preserve Your Church on earth...