Advent
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Finishing the calendar year in Advent also brings my reading into Revelation. (NOTE: While it is the end of the “calendar year”, it is the beginning of the Church Year.) Over my lifetime I have gone through a lot of changed thinking when it comes to the Book of Revelation. It has become to me a book… Read more
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Stepping into the Anglican tradition this year brings deeper reflection on this season of Advent. Our worship each Sunday is far more reflective and “somber” than the rest of the season indicates all around us. Read more
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“Today I have one concern and one concern only — to bring before you the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. How can we not love him with every fiber of our being? We were unworthy, but he counted us worthy. We deserved judgment, but he gave us mercy. We were slaves to sin and… Read more
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Advent begins in darkness. Advent calls us to examination and to remember the coming judgments of Christ. We don’t like darkness. We don’t like waiting. We’ve misinterpreted “judgment” so we don’t like that, either. So, in the process, we’ve diminished a season that is very much needed in the Church. Read more
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Some thoughts from Fleming Rutledge’s great work, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ: “Advent begins in the dark.” Read more
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Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. — Henri Nouwen Read more
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“Unlike American Christianity, the Bible is not individualistic, but thoroughly social in its orientation. When the Church groans with Isaiah, ‘Thou hast hid they face far from us,’ it speaks as a corporate body with a common lot. If one suffers, all suffer.” — Fleming Rutledge, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Christ Read more
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I am a slow learner. Over the past decade I have worked to understand the liturgical year more and incorporate key elements into my Pentecostal ministry. I am still learning. (The upside of that is I will probably die while I’m still learning something.) Read more
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“Our lives are eschatologically stretched between the sneak preview of the new world being born among us in the church, and the old world where the principalities and powers are reluctant to give way. In the meantime, which is the only time the church has ever known, we live as those who know something about… Read more
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It’s my last Christmas Eve service at Heights Church serving as pastor. It took me over 19 years of preaching to finally get a message where the points play off of a word! My penultimate message and I FINALLY get something together using one word! Read more
Apprentice 2 Jesus 