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You bunch of Sabbath breakers!
John 5 gives us the story of the lame man healed at the Pool of Bethesda. The real problem the Jewish leadership had was… horrors! … Jesus healed on the SABBATH. They were so concerned about Sabbath breaking they missed the larger point of actually helping someone. Each of us, regardless of our theological leanings, have this temptation in us. We cut…
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The Political Jesus
When Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, it was a time the crowd decided to boldly make a play for his leadership. They laid out palms, as symbols of Jewish nationalism. They cried out for their King to save them… from the Roman oppression. Jesus wants our praise and celebration. “But too often we only see him through the issues…
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Let us be willing to die for something different
I want to know the feeling of “dying” for something different. By that I mean having a desperation for something that is just more. A place where I get beyond the internet fascinations of whatever is being discussed in the moment… and the tirades… to the possible. Not the possible of what can be done in human terms, but what…
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The small things we do
If we could possibly move away from doing things that we only think are good enough to post on Facebook, think of all the things we actually DO that bless people in the name of the Kingdom. When you think about all of us as believers simply living out the Kingdom in some small way… it is a huge payoff.…
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The need of the Church
The need of the Church is not some cleansing to make sure we have some very strict doctrinal stance memorized perfectly. Doctrine is important. Teaching is vital. Memorizing something to sound absolutely correct and then demanding that precision accuracy of everyone else is not healthy. The need of the Church is not beating our one issue social concern drums. Either…
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Mind and Soul
With one foot squarely in the ministry world and another foot barely in the academic world, I am constantly challenged by our “either/or” thinking. I may be wrong about the world truly being “both/and.” Maybe it’s not. Maybe you have to be either uber-smart… and an academic who is very capable at writing, but not very capable at other forms of communication……
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I dream of a day when we quit ranking sins
It’s not about particular sins. It’s about SIN. It’s about our rebellion against God. It’s about our desire to be our own little gods. But when we are in our own little rebellions, we feel better about pointing out someone else’s “worse” sin. I pray for the day, just in my own life, when I’m done to ranking sin. 9 So what…
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When we don’t trust the unity that is in Christ
When we don’t trust the unity that is in Christ, we default into manipulation. We manipulate through legalism or hyper-spirituality. We need to trust the One in whom all things hold together. 16 So don’t let anyone judge you about eating or drinking or about a festival, a new moon observance, or sabbaths. 17 These religious practices are only a shadow of…
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Rebelling against the plaid
When I think of how church is “done” today, all I can see is plaid. The fad is fading (one can hope) but it comes from watching some video coming from some “cutting edge” pastors … excuse me… leaders conference… and 99 percent of the people on the video who were on stage or being interviewed or were doing the interviewing wore plaid in…
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The training of pastors
Pope Francis made some very pointed remarks about the need to train new priests. Some of his comments are so needed in our training of pastors in protestant circles as well: “Formation (of future priests) is a work of art, not a police action. We must form their hearts. Otherwise we are creating little monsters. And then these little monsters…
Category: Church Life
