words on All Saints' Day

[Saint] Valentine was a priest in Rome when Emperor Claudius II began his hostile reign. Valentine was arrested for performing Christian weddings. While imprisoned, Valentine befriended the jailer’s d...

Preaching Commentary Taking Off the Old Clothes and Putting on the New Our passage continues Paul’s teaching on “the putting off of the old self” (anthropos) (of sin, corruption, and death) vs.22 a...

God, be all our love, all our hope, all our striving; let our thoughts and words flow from you, our daily life be in you, and every breath we take be for you. Amen.

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556), the archbishop of Canterbury from 1532 to 1556, played a pivotal role in the English Reformation. A key figure in Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Catholic Church, Cranmer...

God—We’d like to have had a Hallmark card kind of week: gentle, quiet and serene, but it’s been anything but that. People died this week—and families and friends grieve. A man got bad news about cance...

Eternal and Glorious God, You are merciful, kind, and forgiving. You hear us when we confess to You. We admit we do not focus on You with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. A day devoted to Yo...

Preaching Commentary The Dangers of Our Words No matter how much we might wish it weren’t the case, the perception others have of us is directly connected to the words (and actions) we use througho...

I often think of the set pieces of liturgy as certain words which people have successfully addressed to God without their getting killed.

Taking Off the Old Clothes and Putting on the New Our passage continues Paul’s teaching on “the putting off of the old self” (anthropos) (of sin, corruption, and death) vs.22 and putting on the “new ...

Voice 1: Words! Voice 2: By them the universe was created: planets and moons, stars and sky, all living things, day and night. People: We come today to worship and adore the Creator of this world and...

There is something profoundly hypocritical about praising God for God’s mighty deeds of salvation and cooperating at the same time with the demons of destruction, whether by neglecting to do good or b...

Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned.

Many churches today remind me of a laboring crew trying to gather in a harvest while they sit in the tool shed. They go to the tool shed every Sunday and they study bigger and better methods of agricu...

Father God, we confess that the actions of our hands do not often match the words of our mouths. We say one thing and do another. We give you praise and curse a friend, we sing songs of thanksgiving a...

Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in 'religion' mean nothing unless they make our actual behavior better.... When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making ...

Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.

Mark Rutland humorously recalls a survey asking Americans which words they most long to hear. As expected, the top response was, “ I love you. ” The second was, “ I forgive you .” ...

Leader: Heavenly Father, I confess that I have sinned against you. I have delighted my soul in other things more than I have in you. Why, then, is it any surprise to me that you feel far off from me? ...

Heavenly Father, please forgive us for when we are not setting an example with our speech, with our faith, in our conduct, in our love, or in our purity. Too often we ignore your word and all that we’...

Pastor: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and i...

Pastor: “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open...

It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.

Leader: The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. People: The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord are sure, making wise th...

Mahatma Gandhi speaking to Christians, “You Christians have in your keeping a document with enough dynamite in it to blow the whole of civilization to bits; to turn society upside down; to bring peace...

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer. Amen.

In the silence, we raise our voice before you. We wonder aloud why you are so far from us when we call. In the agony of our cry, we are reminded that it is we who have wandered from your fold, from th...

Grace must find expression in life, otherwise it is not grace.

A theology of response does not need to be Pelagian; it need only be a theology in which the reality of the human is taken seriously.

It's ironic that most evangelical churches are filled with people who live very much like the world but look different from it. It should be exactly the opposite. We should look similar to those i...

The best prayers have often more groans than words.