“The form, the teaching, the truth moves you beyond the form. Like there’s an arc, or a movement, or a trajectory in the words. If you take them seriously, they take you somewhere. The forms aren’t the goal, the goal is an experience of Spirit. I began to see that you can have every form imaginable but without Spirit, without that animating, propulsive energy doing something in it, it’s just a form. Just a prayer, just a set of beliefs, just a religion, just words. We’re surrounded by forms, forms…

9 Things You Can Do to Heal The Nation Today 1. Pray for the nation; pray for President Trump and for President-elect Biden. 2. Be kind in speech and actions especially with those with whom you disagree. 3. Grant Jesus’ request to “ pray for enemies and bless those that curse you.” 4. Use your social media platforms only for positive, non- aggressive, encouraging, and constructive purposes. 5. Refuse to pass along information as truth that does not bear the marks of good scholarship and fairness. 6. Reflect on and…

By the time you read this, our Country will have chosen a President…maybe. It’s a sacred responsibility to be able to participate in making a choice like that. In choosing we give voice to our values, our priorities, and our allegiances. In choosing, we commit our energies and aptitudes. It’s no wonder then that Joshua, Moses’ successor, gathered the tribes of Israel and asked them to make a choice. “Choose this day,” he said, “whom you will serve….” He went further than that, he said, “…as for me and my…

Ghosts and Goblins, costumes, masks, tricks, treats, and frights are all part of Halloween. Halloween’s thrill is to feel scared without actually experiencing any real danger or threat. Candy too. But, what’s scary for me, aren’t the ghosts and goblins but the zombies. According to Webster’s dictionary, “a zombie is someone who appears to be lifeless and unresponsive to their surroundings.” These days, it’s possible to claim allegiance to Jesus Christ loudly and publicly while delighting in and celebrating indifference and malice loudly and publicly. Have you noticed the prevalence…

Following Jesus, proclaiming Jesus, loving like Jesus has always elicited opposition. St. Paul makes this clear in the first letter he ever wrote. The first thing he says that causes opposition is speaking in a fashion that puts pleasing God above pleasing people. This kind of speaking fends off temptations to deceit, manipulative flattery, or pretext to greed. It also refuses our ego’s need to return injury for injury even passive-aggressively. As you know this takes real-world practice and a whole lot of courage. But, more than courage it takes…

We talk about God as being Almighty-matchless in power! Think of God also as having the greatest range-peerless in scope, span, and sweep of love. Cue the Diana Ross hit, “Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough… to keep me from you.” That’s what Jesus shows us, range! He reaches, stretches, and extends himself to us. His spiritual range of motion is superior! How’s your range of motion these days? If we aren’t intentional about exercising our faith muscles they will seize and atrophy. And our range…

When the church is aflame with bitter political partisanship rather than the fire of the love of God, then functionally we have become atheists. That kind of church is an offense to the example and teachings of Christ. That kind of church is at best a group of religious performance artists or at worst idolaters. There aren’t enough strong words to condemn this culturally preferred and accepted betrayal of Jesus’ vision. When the church forfeits her sacred calling and becomes a pawn and public relations firm for either political party…

Some of us have got some pretty impressive resumes: schools, organizations, companies, boards, etc. St. Paul had a pretty impressive resume too: right family, right location, right kind of spiritual practice. But, what he clearly commends for the Christian is a second page for our resumes – a page 2. On that page there would be a list of the things we have lost or sacrificed solely because we follow Jesus! On that page would be a list of those things that we thought were golden but now know are…

We are too much the subject of our preaching and talking in the church. God is the protagonist of our story not us. By the grace of God, you and I have been swept up in the truth of God. And, the most true thing about God is that “God is love!” You and I are the inheritors and the beneficiaries of something we couldn’t earn or deserve if we tried. To take that in at any real depth drives the heart up in adoration and the head down in…