Category: spiritual
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To sit with her in her pain.
Several days ago I received a sublime gift: to sit with a dear friend in her pain. It may not sound like a gift to you, but hear me out. My friend’s life has been upended in so many ways; what were solid foundations of her spiritual, emotional, and physical life have been torn out…
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Milestones. Spiritual Formation Series, Part 4.
Parents, physicians, therapists, and educators alike use milestones to measure and quantify growth. Milestones are incredibly helpful when it comes to ensuring that everyone from tot to teen is on track for normal physical, emotional, mental development. Why, then, when it comes to spiritual markers in the life of faith – signposts to keep us…
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“For the one who is not against us is for us.”
(A fresh look at what Jesus may have meant in Mark 9:40.) This phrase has been reverberating in my head ever since our pastor preached on it recently. As a young evangelical Christian, I used to think of the people who were against me as the people whose ideologies were primarily different from mine: atheists, Satanists,…
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For Richer & For Poorer
What good gifts do you have? (Health, Wealth, Beauty, Home, Friendship, Family, Marriage, Children, Work, Passions, Natural Talent, Strengths, etc. etc.) Think about them for a moment. If you have a minute right now, make a list of them somewhere. Look them over; assess their worth – see if you can! Now. With this incredible…
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It’s been a weighty week…
…and so I find myself reading and re-reading a portion of Paul and Timothy’s circulating letter to the early church that centers on comfort. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort…
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What if Death is really dead?
It’s the refrain that has been reverberating in my head all week as we’ve approached Good Friday: “Death is dead.” Jesus defeated Death, conquering it, triumphing over it. This week I’ve been thinking a lot about Death and taking a fisheye lens to it, seeing if I can mature and broaden its meaning in my heart…
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Conversion Obsession. Spiritual Formation Series, Part 2.
For most of my life I’ve been obsessed with conversion: my own and other people’s. As I’ve studied the life of Jesus lately, I’ve noticed something: Jesus wasn’t. I spent my elementary years worried about if I’d prayed the [conversion] prayer properly. I spent my middle and high school years embarrassed about not having done…
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What is church?
My boys were in the car with my sister when it happened. They drove past our church building – a huge, gorgeous brick building located conspicuously downtown, right on the main drag. “There’s your church!” my sister said, innocuously. “Well, that’s the place we go to church,” my 4-year-old corrected her, just as innocuously. “Our church…
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No more inspiring devotions, please.
I just got a pop-up window that said, “Click here to get inspiring email devotions in your inbox.” Call me a cynic, but my first thought was, ‘That’s the last thing I need – to be inspired. I need far more help than fuzzy, feel-good devotionals.’ I looked up the definition of inspire: to fill…
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Mid-Week Quiet Service
A few months ago my friend/pastor and I started a short, simple contemplative service in our 100-year-old stained glass sanctuary every Wednesday from 12noon – 12:45pm. We call it Quiet Worship, Quiet Service, or sometimes, just Quiet. I wanted to share it with you in case: you’re local and you’d like to come! you’re far…