In most worship services, some form of music accompanies the passing of offering plates. Financial gifts are offered to God in a context of music. Unfortunately, a tendency exists to interpret the instrumental or choral offertory as background music or a nice cover-up...
If the church is to survive as a place where head and heart are equal partners in faith, then we will need to commit ourselves…not to the worship of Christ, but to the imitation of Jesus. His invitation was not to believe, but to follow. Since it was once dangerous to...
To believe in Christ’s rising and death’s dying is also to live with the power and the challenge to rise up now from all our dark graves of suffering love. If sympathy for the world’s wounds is not enlarged by our anguish, if love for those around us is not expanded,...
If the church is to survive as a place where head and heart are equal partners in faith, then we will need to commit ourselves once again not to the worship of Christ, but to the imitation of Jesus. His invitation was not to believe, but to follow. Since it was once...
I love the Bible. I have spent more than half of my life reading it, studying it, teaching and preaching it. While I do not find every word of it as inspiring (or inspired) as some of my fellow Christians do, I encounter God in it reliably enough to commit myself on a...
Because our gifts carry us out into the world and make us participants in life, the uncovering of them is one of the most important tasks confronting any one of us. When we talk about being true to ourselves—being the persons we are intended to be—we are talking about...
But the Gospel doesn’t need a coalition devoted to keeping the wrong people out. It needs a family of sinners, saved by grace, committed to tearing down the walls, throwing open the doors, and shouting, “Welcome! There’s bread and wine. Come eat with us and talk.”...
And all hands are needed to save this sinking ship. Let Christians not quibble about commitments to Christ. Let all those who want to keep civilization civilized—put quality into culture, humanity into business life, life into the millions who are now drifting—let...
Christ lives in us and leads us, through mutual encounter and commitment, into a new future which we build together for one another.
The most common greeting of the first Christmas was not ‘Merry Christmas.’ It was ‘Don’t be afraid!’ It took real courage and perseverance to be at the manger: Mary’s courage, Joseph’s commitment to Mary, the awestruck obedience of shepherds, and the politically...