Christianity is…a religion of resistance and a religion of hope. The point of the cross is not finally suffering and death; it is, rather, that a relationship holds. There is a love stronger than death, that can withstand whatever the forces of evil do against it, and...
When we think of loss we think of the loss, through death, of people we love. But loss is a far more encompassing theme in our life. For we lose not only through death, but also by leaving and being left, by changing and letting go and moving on. from Necessary...
The sense of being stranded in the midst of life . . . is enough to drain a person’s very personality until there is little left to recognize. Where did the joy go all of a sudden? Where did the feeling of self-confidence disappear to in the midst of this emptiness?...
Most people die with the music still in them.
Worship celebrates God’s saving deed in Jesus Christ. This kind of worship is not a goal-driven worship, but a Christ-driven worship. And when Christ is the center of worship, all the goals of worship are achieved: Christ-centered worship educates, evangelizes, heals,...
The focus of worship is not human experience, not a lecture, not entertainment, but Jesus Christ: His life, death, and resurrection. Worship is a verb. It is not something done to us or for us, but by us. from Worship is a Verb
Jay hugged me hard when I left. He was going back to Colorado in a few days. “I don’t believe in God,” he said. “But sometimes when I’m up in the mountains above the tree line, it’s like whoa, you know: There’s a big, big love.” “I know,” I said. Christianity wasn’t...
You wonder how long my love will last? Find your answer on a splintered cross on a craggy hill. That’s me you see up there, your maker, your God, nail-stabbed and bleeding. Covered in spit and sin-soaked. That’s your sin I’m feeling. That’s your death I’m dying....
Lent is the darkness I enter into so that I can walk into the Light of Easter morning. Lent is the willingness to let the old die so that I can experience again the reality of resurrection. All of this is played out in the everyday, ordinary stuff of my very everyday,...
The cross is not and cannot be loved. Yet only the crucified Christ can bring the freedom which changes the world because it is no longer afraid of death. In his time, the crucified Christ was regarded as a scandal and as foolishness. Today, too, it is considered...