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Dostoevysky and the Origins of Burnout

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Keywords

In Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov , Alyosha, the novel’s central protagonist, asks his father for permission to join a monastery, where he seeks to purify his soul and sanctify his wo...

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The Hitchhiker Who Pulled a Gun on Me

Author

JR Woodward

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 12:20-21, Matthew 5:44, James 2:1, Proverbs 16:7, Ephesians 2:14-16

I was driving in Columbus, Ohio, when I came upon a hitchhiker who alternated between holding his thumb out and clasping his hands together as if he were praying. I picked him up. His name was Mike, a...

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Author

Eugene H. Peterson

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The wise men were experts in the movement of the stars and signs in the heavens. Their inquiry thrusts the provincial village into a cosmic concern. It is not the scientific data they are searching ou...

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Author

John Henry Newman

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I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created; I have a place in God’s counsels, in God’s world, which no one else has; . . . God knows me and calls me by my name.

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Author

Ralph Waldo Emerson

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What you do speaks so loud, that I cannot hear what you say.

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Author

Eugene H. Peterson

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The biblical fondness for genealogical lists is not dull obscurantism, it is an insistence on the primacy and continuity of people. Each name is a burnished link connecting God’s promises to his fulfi...

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Culture is Like Gravity

Author

JR Woodward

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 12:2, 1 Corinthians 15:33, Philippians 4:8-9, Ephesians 5:18-21, Deuteronomy 6:6-9

Culture is like gravity. We never talk about it, except in physics classes. We don’t include gravity in our weekly planning processes. No one gets up thinking about how gravity will affect their day. ...

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Life in Reverse: Short Term Spiritual Memory Loss

Author

Casey K. Tygrett

Keywords

Scripture

Joshua 4:6-7, 2 Peter 1:12-13, James 1:23-25, John 14:26, Revelation 2:5

In the film Memento , we meet Leonard, who is searching for the man who killed his wife. He appears to be the typical Hollywood hero of the early 2000s. The hair is right; the jaw line, the atmospher...

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PTSD and Our Core Story

Author

Casey K. Tygrett

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 1:31, 1 John 3:2, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, Revelation 21:4, Jeremiah 31:3

The robbing of our lives occurs when the core story of who we are—created as “very good” (Gen 1:31) and never downgraded, and “beloved” of God (1 Jn 3:2)—is taken through specific memories and twisted...

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Looking Back to Find the Way Out

Author

Casey K. Tygrett

Keywords

Scripture

John 14:26, Revelation 2:5, Philippians 1:3, Isaiah 46:9, 2 Peter 1:12-15

Barbara Brown Taylor recounts her first experience with caving, the exploration of caves that are not prepared or made easily accessible for inexperienced explorers. Her guides gave her a bit of helpf...

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Author

Curtis Hutson

Keywords

Scripture

2 Corinthians 5:17, 1 John 3:9, James 2:17, Colossians 2:6-7, Titus 3:5-7

You don’t turn from sin to get saved. You get saved to turn from sin.

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He-They-We Poem

Author

John Oxenham

Keywords

Scripture

John 12:12-16

They hailed him King as he passed by, They strewed their garments in the road, But they were set on earthly things, And he on God. They sang his praise for that he did, But gave his mes...

liturgy

Psalm 51 (Miserere)

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Scripture

Psalm 51:

May be said responsively, alternating between leader and congregation. Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving-kindness; in your great compassion blot out my offenses. Wash me through a...

scripture guide

Scripture Guide, Romans 5:12-19

Author

Casey Clark

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 5:12-19

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? All are Unrighteous By the time you get to chapter five of Paul’s letter to the Romans, you’ve heard the argument build: we are unrigh...

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Rodney King & Driving While Black

Author

Esau McCaulley

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Rodney King had led the police on a high speed chase through Los Angeles. Eventually the police got him to stop, and after he exited the car, he was savagely beaten by four officers. The entire countr...

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How being a Slave Shaped their Reading of Scripture

Author

Esau McCaulley

Keywords

Scripture

Galatians 3:28

The social location of enslaved persons caused them to read the Bible differently. This unabashedly located reading has marked African American interpretation since. Did this social location mean Blac...

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Our Stories, Incarnated by God

Author

Casey K. Tygrett

Keywords

Scripture

1 Corinthians 11:26, Romans 6:3-4, 2 Corinthians 3:2-3, Revelation 12:11, Colossians 2:11-12

Every person in Scripture lived out a personal story incarnated by an even greater story about God, life, and the world. That story came from the politics, theology, and culture ingrained in their mem...

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Smells Hack Our Memory

Author

Casey K. Tygrett

Keywords

Scripture

Genesis 8:21, Exodus 30:34-38, Leviticus 1:9, John 12:3, 2 Corinthians 2:14-16

The Forming of a Memory Before we truly remember anything, it starts as an experience. It is a moment when our senses (sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch) interact with the world around us. Those ...

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We Learn from Reflection on Experience, not Experience Alone

Author

Trevor Hudson

Keywords

One simple sentence, from my first pastoral supervisor, has significantly shaped how I seek to discern God’s personal will. Each Wednesday during my first year of congregational ministry, we met to re...

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Surrendering a Daughter to God’s Care

Author

Trevor Hudson

Keywords

Let me share one more lesson I am learning about daily surrender. It concerns the way we relate to others. Daily we encounter people who express views opposite to our own, hold values with which we ca...

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Called to Faithfulness

Author

Trevor Hudson

Keywords

Many years ago, I watched a documentary on the remarkable ministry of Mother Teresa among the poverty-stricken people of Calcutta. At one stage there was a moving exchange between her and the commenta...

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Becoming the Person God Wants Us to Be

Author

Trevor Hudson

Keywords

Scripture

Isaiah 43:1, Ephesians 2:10, Galatians 6:4-5, Romans 14:4, 12, 1 Corinthians 12:4-18, 2 Corinthians 10:12, Matthew 25:14-30, 1 Corinthians 12:

Each one of us is called to live the truth of our unrepeatable uniqueness. We are not meant to model ourselves after others, however wonderful they may be. A delightful Jewish parable makes this point...

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You are Named and Known

Author

Trevor Hudson

Keywords

The astonishing good news that the Bible gives… is that God has a personal will for each of us. Because we find this truth so hard to learn by heart, we need to hear it repeatedly. So let me repeat it...

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Author

Antiphon

Keywords

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...

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Author

Eric Greitens

Keywords

Resilience is the virtue that enables people to move through hardship and become better. No one escapes pain, fear, and suffering. Yet from pain can come wisdom, from fear can come courage, from suffe...

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Author

Hans Urs von Balthasar

Keywords

Contemplative prayer . . . neither can nor should be self-contemplation, but [rather] a reverent regard and listening to . . . the Not-me, namely, the Word of God.

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Author

Stanley Hauerwas

Keywords

Scripture

Matthew 5:13-16, Philippians 2:15, 1 Peter 1:3-9, Ephesians 3:10, 2 Corinthians 5:20

The church does not exist to make the world run more smoothly, but to be a truthful sign of what the world is meant to be.

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Author

Jürgen Moltmann

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 5:3-4, James 1:2-3, 1 Peter 1:6-7, Hebrews 11:1, 1 Peter 4:12-13

Faith does not grow in spite of suffering, but through suffering, when hope learns to contradict reality.

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Author

John H. Elliot

Keywords

Scripture

1 Peter 4:12-16, 1 Peter 3:16-17, 1 Peter 2:19-20, 1 Peter 1:6-7

The suffering addressed in 1 Peter is not random misfortune but the social cost of a new identity that challenges prevailing cultural norms.

Quote

Author

Michael Gorman

Keywords

Scripture

Romans 8:19-21, 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, Philippians 3:20-21, Colossians 1:16-18, Revelation 21:, 2 Corinthians 5:17

Salvation in the New Testament is consistently portrayed not as escape from creation but as the redemption and transformation of creation.

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