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The Feast of St Nicholas
ETERNAL GOD,in your great loveyou gave your servant NICHOLASa perpetual name for deeds of kindness on land and sea.Grant that your Church may never cease to workfor the happiness of children,the safety of sailors,the relief of the poorand the help of those who are tossedby tempests of doubt or grief;through JESUS CHRIST our LORD,who lives and reigns with you and…
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Advent for the nonheroic
If there is a way for you to obtain Fleming Rutledge’s book, Advent, I would highly recommend it. Her compilation of sermons and articles through her years of ministry are so rich. She pulls no punches on the power of Advent and the glory of the once and future coming of Jesus Christ.
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The church has its own calendar
“There is no way for the church to adjust its calendar to the world’s calendar. The church is not part of the American culture, (Read that sentence ten times!) and never should should have been. The church keeps her own deep inner rhythms.” — Advent, Fleming Rutledge Advent is a time of darkness, waiting, and anticipation. It is something I…
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Advent, darkness, and bearing each other’s burdens
“… those who are better off stand shoulder to shoulder with those who suffer. No one is fee until all are free. No one is safe until all are safe. No matter how ‘up’ I may feel personally, my place as a Christian in the larger scheme of things is not to bask in the continual sunshine of God’s presence,…
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Life goals
I am working my way through Fleming Rutledge’s wonderful work on Advent (again). There was a description she gave of John Stott that stood out to me and I have set it in the form of a question for my life. Could this be my eulogy? Will I have a single-hearted devotion to the glory of God and the spread…
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The glorious church we miss seeing
We’re hard on the Church in general. We’re hard on the American Church in specific. We can take turns on the reasons each of us are hard on the Church. I am hard on the American conservative Church because of its spiritual blindness. Yet… I stay with it. Why?
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The thanksgiving meal and… ummm… “difficult” people
The past week or so has been a week of angst on social media and the media in general. How do you have a nice meal with people who are not in your political camp? Mostly, it’s about “tolerating” the “difficult” people. (It never occurs to us that we’re the difficult ones at times.)
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A Thanksgiving Prayer
Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love. We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us…
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“If they stop they’ll die…”
A friend recommended the book The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Peter Scazzero. It as a book influencing his life so he recommended it to me. I am grateful. There is a chapter on Sabbath in the book that coincided with a podcast I finished on the same day. The podcast is an interview with A J Swoboda and it is…
