keyword
Search by topic, scripture, category etc..
39 Results in 1310ms
Display
Sorted By
-
liturgy
A Veterans Day Prayer
This prayer, by Rev. Lisa Degrenia, is intended as a way to honor and support the veterans in your community and their families. It may be included anywhere in the service, but is especially well suit... -
illustration
A Soldier's Sacrifice
A chaplain was speaking to a soldier on a cot in a hospital. “You have lost an arm in the great cause,” he said. “No,” said the soldier with a smile. “I didn’t lose it–I gave it.” In that same way, Je... -
liturgy
A Veterans Day Service
A contemporary prayer service honoring, remembering, and thanking military veterans as a community, allowing congregants to remember individual veterans by name. It focuses on the needs of military ve... -
scripture guide
Scripture Guide, Luke 14:25-33
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... -
illustration
Sacrificial Courage
A truly remarkable example of sacrificial courage took place in Folsom, New Mexico, in 1908. When a flood was racing toward the valley, a resident from the hills warned a local woman, S. J. Brooks, th... -
illustration
Wherever Help is Needed
While written well over a century ago, this excerpt (from the great Princeton theologian) B.B. Warfield’s sermon “imitating the Incarnation continues to inspire the kind of life Christ calls us to: ... -
lectionary
17th Sunday after Pentecost
Context This text comes near the midpoint of the Gospel of Mark, and its central narrative position is more than matched by its pivotal thematic content. Jesus has turned from his focus on ministry i... -
illustration
Service over Glory
When Pearl Harbor was bombed, one of the Americans who volunteered to serve his country was Bob Feller. Bob was a 23-year-old pitcher for the Cleveland Indians, a phenomenon who had already pitched a ... -
Quote
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known. -
illustration
No Bell Sounded for the Guilty
During the time of Oliver Cromwel ascendancy in England, a young soldier faced execution as the curfew bell was set to toll. Desperate to save him, the soldier's beloved approached Cromwell, plead... -
illustration
In the early fifth century, even as Rome
In the early fifth century, even as Rome had officially embraced Christianity, the brutal spectacle of gladiatorial combat continued in the Colosseum, drawing massive crowds. One day, a Christian herm... -
illustration
The Impact of Going Through the Fire
In George Bernard Shaw’s play about Joan of Arc , as Joan faces her execution by burning, she addresses those in power who have condemned her: “I will now go to the common people and find comfort in ... -
Quote
A person's life is his most precious possession. Consequently, to rob him of it is the greatest sin we can commit against him, while to give one's own life on his behalf is the greatest possib... -
illustration
The Agony & The Ecstasy
During the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Japanese gymnast Shun Fujimoto broke his right knee while competing in the floor exercise. At the time, Japan and the Soviet Union fielded the world's ... -
illustration
Taking (A Huge) One for the Team
On a beautiful April afternoon in 2008, two college softball teams faced off in a decisive playoff game beneath the Cascade Mountains. The Western Oregon Wolves battled Central Washington University, ... -
illustration
Heroic Sacrifice
You may remember that in January of 1982, Air Florida Flight 90 crashed into the icy Potomac River right after takeoff. While 74 passengers and crew perished, several were saved by the actions of a he... -
illustration
Chess and Surrender to God: The King is Infinity Points
We sometimes imagine surrender to God as emotional starvation. Every pleasure feels suspicious, and every passion feels in competition with our love of God. We think that the more miserable we are in ... -
illustration
The Martyr's Mindset: Ignatius of Antioch and Death as Worship
How many modern Christians consider dying to be the worst thing that can happen to them? We pray for safety, healing, and protection, and rightly so. However, do we live in the truth that death has tr... -
liturgy
Embracing Sacrifice for God's Glory
Gracious God, our decisions are often rooted in keeping comfortable. We keep quiet in order to protect ourselves. We give just enough to look good in front of others. We hold back to avoid pain. Yet y... -
illustration
The Greatest Sacrifice
In The Hiding Place Corrie ten Boom tells of the time she and her father needed to find a safer place for a Jewish mother and child they had been concealing from the Nazis. A local clergyman cam... -
illustration
Are You Afraid You'll Get Caught?
An American pastor once asked an Indonesian missionary who works among Indonesians but with a different people group from his own, “Are you afraid you’ll get caught?” Christian mission work in Indones... -
Quote
In view of all that God has accomplished for his people in Christ, how should his people live? They should present themselves to God as a ‘living sacrifice’, consecrated to him. The animal sacrifices ... -
illustration
A Lifetime of Sacrifice
Francis Chan tells the story of Domingo and Irene Garcia: He’s a mechanic. She’s a hairdresser. They have been foster parents to thirty-two children and have adopted sixteen. Domingo and Irene are in... -
lectionary
Fourth Sunday of Advent
Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Context to the Letter While we don’t have a robust understanding of the context of Hebrews compared to, for example, many of Paul’s let... -
illustration
Lamblike Masculinity
A few years ago I led a two-day retreat for some Christian men. …We agreed that we don’t want to be a bunch of dudes , allowing American cultural images of masculinity to shape our hearts. Nei... -
Quote
Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end... -
Quote
Jesus said you are to love one another as I have loved you, a love that will possibly lead to the bloody, anguished gift of yourself, a love that forgives seven times seven, that keeps no score of wro... -
illustration
Rescuing His Pursuer
In sixteenth-century Holland, the Mennonites were outlawed and, when caught, often executed. One of them, Dirk Willens, was being chased across an icefield when his pursuer broke through and fell in. ... -
illustration
Grace Turns our World Upside Down
At the beginning to the musical Les Misérables , the lead character Jean Valjean is arrested by the police, with silver he has stolen from a kindly bishop who had given him shelter. Valjean is plainl... -
Quote
In effect, he resigned his position. There is no way Zacchaeus could have remained a tax collector. He got out of the tree – extricating himself from the pyramid structure of debt and duty. In respons...
Page 1 of 2
Keywords by Topic
A
C
O
S
W
Keywords by Reference