Regardless of what we criticize or change, Christmas Eve reminded me of two things: that church is simple, and that church is necessary. [Click title to read more.]
Merry Christmases
Despite what television tells us, Christmas needn't look any one particular way. The only thing that Christmases need share is a recognition of the glory in Luke 2:14, the miracle about which angels sang. [Click title to read more.]
Ten Things You Must Do Before Christmas
It's coming. Christmas, I mean. It's coming. For some of us - like me, who celebrate a week early or a week late with out-of-town friends and family - it's already arrived. Here, then, is a list of Super-Important Things You Absolutely Must Do Before Or By Christmas. [Click title to read more.]
Prayer As An Attitude
Prayer is not just an act which one commits at a certain time and a certain place. It is a way of life and of being: an attitude. To "pray without ceasing" requires attention and mindfulness--it requires seeing people, or moments that are passing by, and to recognize them right then as meaningful to God whether or not you feel they are meaningful to you. [Click title to read more.]
Weekly Round-Up
Let's catch up, pray, and rest together. [Click title to read more.]
Christmas Is A Beginning
Christians--instinctively, I think--tend to divide up our understanding of Jesus-as-baby versus Jesus-as-savior. The cosmic moment, the violent sacrifice, the grand and undying love: we save our contemplation of those things for Easter. But they started in the manger. [Click title to read more.]
The Burden of the Teacher
I'm writing this because every now and then I'm struck by how easy it is for believers to become teachers. At some churches all you have to do is volunteer. And because of that, I think we can often come to view teaching casually, as though it's just another duty to fulfill or just another activity to take on. But it isn't. [Click title to read more.]
Weekly Round-Up
Let's catch up, pray, and rest together. [Click title to read more.]
The Joyful Work
I would say that a godly definition of "work" differs significantly from the way we typically define it in our materially-minded, results-obsessed culture. [Click title to read more.]
Redefining Our Understanding of Strength
Peacefulness, the refusal to depend on the self or on physical strength, the healing of those who would harm us, the deliberate avoidance of indulging one's "right" to retribution: if we interpret those things as weakness, we miss the point of the Gospel. [Click title to read more.]
Samaritan's Song 