We need your weirdness to remind us that there’s wonder in a world that often feels cold and pointless. We need your groove to beckon us to dance when we’re tempted to run from one thing to the next. Your weirdness is a gift to us, an invitation to take notice of the...
In the Season of Pentecost (Liturgical churches call it "Ordinary Time") -- God called Abram to leave his home to find a new one, and Jesus called Matthew, a tax-collector, to leave his job and “follow me.” In both testaments, we heard stories of moving from...
Too few people ever truly fall in love, which makes me sad. I think it could be because they are forever looking for the perfect partner who will finally rescue them and make them happy. They don't realize that no one can "make you" happy. A person can wait their...
Fear-based church invitations ("come join us to boost our organizational strength so we can be church in the way to which we are accustomed") are like spiritual bug repellent to anyone curious about church.
One thing healthy religion does is challenge us. I don’t mean the strident castigations of the street preacher or even the social justice rally-er. Great traditions excel at the soft challenge, the friendly nudge, issued predominantly through the mode of story....
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety. Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and...
It is something we all have experience with--the dust of our lives. We miss the mark of God's best for us when we believe the illusion that our dustiness is only in part of us. Our lives are not...as shiny clean as we like to think they are. Our lives are not free of...
Because God is the subject of worship, we must back up a step to recall that, before liturgy can involve the work of the people who offer their praise, it begins with the presence of God graciously inviting that response. It seems to me that some of the worship wars...
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...
The invitation of Advent is the invitation—right now, this very moment—to open our ordinary lives, common experiences, and everyday relationships, as well as our deepest selves, to the Spirit of the living Christ. from Shimmers of Light