There are many people who will always want to return to the time when America was great. But was there ever a time when America was a wonderful place for everyone? As I saw on a Facebook meme recently...
By many accounts the first Muslim in America was Estevancio of Azamor, a Moroccan guide for a Spanish expedition in 1528 that landed in Florida. A couple of centuries later, as many as a third of the ...
American history books contain stories of women who changed society with their hard work and insistence on justice. The women of the suffrage movement clad in white, those active in the temperance mov...
Father God–You invite us to come as a child to his/her daddy. You invite us to open our souls to You. You invite us to lay our desires before You. You are fond of us, Your children–so we come to You h...
God–our Father, Lord and indwelling Spirit of grace and power: Thank you for hearing us when we pray whether in songs of rejoicing or through tears of sorrow. Thank you for gifts–for the gifts of musi...
1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 1 Corinthians 12:27, Isaiah 43:2, 1 John 4:7, Romans 12:5, James 5:14-15
It is a phone call no parent wants to receive. “Jerry,” Bethany said, “Catherine’s had a little accident.” “Accident! How bad?” “She’s going to be okay. You want to talk to her? We’re in a kind of am...
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...
As the center of Christianity shifts from the West (North America and Western Europe) to the Global South, grinding poverty is on the front doorstep — and in the front pews — of the church of Jesus Ch...
Matthew 18:12-14, 1 Corinthians 12:12-27, 1 Peter 4:10, Philippians 4:13, Luke 12:48
Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909), an American Unitarian minister and writer, who lived and worked in Boston, Massachusetts, and inspired many by his story Ten Times One Is Ten : I’m only one, but I ...
For years, Bible scholars have danced around the matter by saying slavery in Rome was far different from slavery in the first few centuries of American history. No doubt their observations carry a mea...
Introduction There are two significant ways in which waiting is central to our passage today. First, there is the waiting to be reunited with the apostle Paul and the fledgling church in Thessalonica...
Too Busy for God? American work culture is all-pervasive. For many members of your congregation, it can be a real fight to get actual time off—and cell phones and the internet has made it possible to...
My Early Soundtrack What music shaped your early life? For most of us, our parents’ musical tastes probably were our starting place. That music made a deep impression on what we like — and don’t like...
This post is from 2023. For our most up-to-date World Communion Sunday resources and updated content, visit our World Communion Sunday Worship Guide. Celebrating World Communion Sunday World C...
Until recently, most Americans didn’t know that women were pivotal to the NASA space program as far back as the 1950s. Their names and accomplishments were lost to the common history we grew up studyi...
What genre of literature is the Bible? How we answer this question will ultimately determine not just how we read scripture, but how it will ultimately shape our lives. One Sunday school teacher, teac...
Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Peter 5:7, Romans 8:38-39, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Matthew 11:28-30
God of grace, love, and hope–Father, Son and Holy Spirit: You know and understand us–not just because You made us in Your image, and not just because You are omniscient and all wise. You took on flesh...
Matthew 28:19-20, Isaiah 41:10, John 11:25-26, James 5:14-15, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19
Lord—you not only know all things... You notice all things. You notice when we are joyful—and You laugh, too. You notice when we are in grief or despair—and you cry with us. When we are alone or confu...
Today, unlike almost any other earlier period, the money and the strong educational institutions of Christianity are in one part of the world, while a majority of the active believers are located else...
God of grace, power and glory–Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer–and our Father: When we’re tempted to think it’s all up to us: to change the world, to overcome evil, to establish Your kingdom, to make ...
Across all barriers of land and language, wealth and poverty, knowledge and ignorance, we are one, created from the same dust, subject to the same laws, and destined for the same end. With this compas...
1 Peter 4:10, Matthew 5:9, Deuteronomy 31:6, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Psalm 147:3, Philippians 4:6-7
God, our Creative Father, Living Lord, and Holy Spirit: You call us by name and make us Your own–but you don’t leave us alone. You put us in relationships, families, and churches for our encouragemen...
Great God our Father, Savior and Holy Spirit: Our hearts are filled with gratitude for your grace and faithfulness. Thank you for caring about those who we care about–for those who are sick or injured...
In the land whose founding metaphor was the mutuality of John Winthrop’s seventeenth-century vision of a “city set on a hill,” we live more and more in estranged, hostile, exclusive enclaves, linked o...
John 17:21, Micah 6:8, Proverbs 22:9, Matthew 5:4, Jeremiah 17:14
God of Grace and Power ... and our Friend, who sticks closer than a brother: You know when we stumble ... and You know when we manage to get it right. You know when we forget you, but You don’t forget...
Matthew 11:28-30, Colossians 3:12, Matthew 5:14-16, Romans 12:18, Matthew 5:9, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4
Lord: In our times of weakness and our hours of need, Yours is the strength that enables us to carry on, Yours the shoulder we rest our heads upon. When our load is heavy and too much to bear, Yours a...
Genesis 11:1-9 , Jonah 1:4, Daniel 1:6 , Matthew 28:18-20, Acts 17:16-34, Psalm 2:
If one looks at the world scene from a missionary point of view, surely the most striking fact is that, while in great areas of Asia and Africa the church is growing, often growing rapidly, in the lan...