We don’t like change. We like what we know. This is difficult for followers of Jesus, because… Jesus calls us to change of heart and life. He says, “I didn’t come to call righteous people but sinners to change their hearts and lives” (Luke 5:32, CEB). Jesus calls us to big change, to change from the […]
Read more "40 Days of Change: Garments & Wineskins"Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, the season of preparation that leads up to Easter. Scores of Christians will get get the mark of the Cross on their foreheads with ashes. The ashes remind us that we are mortal, that we are dust and to dust we will return. They also are a sign of […]
Read more "Out of the Ashes"Bob Goff, the author of Love Does, tells a story about time when he had to tell someone he cared about, and someone who had cared a lot about him, that he had decided to quit high school and go out west. He went to this person’s house to tell him the bad news. Bob then got […]
Read more "Standing in Grace 4: Going With Us"If you get on social media platform for even a short period of time these days, you will see different prescriptions for what we need to be doing to fix our problems and why each prescription is the right one (and others are wrong). Along these lines, the Apostle Paul faced a question from early Christian communities (and opponents) […]
Read more "Standing in Grace: Why Be Good"Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we find ourselves standing in grace. There is nowhere we can walk in our lives where we are not on the ground of God’s undeserved kindness and warm acceptance of us. We cannot earn it. We can only believe in Jesus and wake up to what […]
Read more "Standing in Grace: Infused Into Us"One brother stole a very special, particular blessing from his brother. That other brother then vowed to kill his brother. They become estranged for years until one decisive day. Though it is a story with ancient, historical origins, the story of Jacob and Esau captures our current realities well. We live in an insecure world, a […]
Read more "Standing in Grace"Mary Oliver once wrote, “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.” Jesus once said, “Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.” What do they have to do with each other? Pastor Mary Ann Moman addresses that […]
Read more "Blessed Be"What do you think the root cause to our missing the mark is? Our nature as humans? Evil? Something else? In Slavery to Death, Richard Beck contends that it’s something else: fear of death. Do you buy that? It’s something to think about when we consider the earliest Christians. For instance, in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, […]
Read more "IMMORTAL 3: DEATH & VICTORY"In the face of mortality, we feel…whatever we feel. We feel a lot of things, and no one feels the exact same way in the exact same sequence as anyone else. And yet, we all seem to make our way to sadness–sometimes inconsolable sadness–and silence, because sometimes there just isn’t much to say. Where is […]
Read more "IMMORTAL 2: Weeping God"“All go to the same place: all are from the dust; all return to the dust.” Ecclesiastes 3:20 CEB Death…it’s an inescapable part of being human. So why do so many of us work so hard to try to escape it? Perhaps it’s because we have very few answers in the face of death; we […]
Read more "IMMORTAL 1: the Keys"