Spirituality is about seeing. It's not about earning or achieving. It's about relationship rather than results or requirements. Once you see, the rest follows. You don't need to push the river, because you are in it. The life is lived within us, and we learn how to...
Many years ago I was delivering a talk in Ottowa, Ontario, on some of the main themes of the prologue to St. John's Gospel, and especially the words, "the Light that enlightens every person coming into the world" (John 1:9, adapted). In attendance that evening was a...
The greatest disease in the West today is not TB or leprosy; it is being unwanted, unloved, and uncared for. We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for...
Music has the uncanny ability to burrow its way into our spiritual bones. When it comes to matters of spirituality and faith, we are what we sing. There is no need to overstate the case. Music is not all-powerful. Many things shape our souls, including our parents’...
We can learn a great deal about worship by looking at the earliest Christians, for the culture that surrounded them was in many ways similar to ours in twenty-first century North America. Then and now the population is highly pluralistic, with the people’s...
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 contemporary obsession with spirituality, among Christians and pagans alike, surely betokens something worthy of the church’s attention. I am not convinced, however, that the current vogue for spirituality should be embraced without making important historical and...
The Christian’s waiting and hoping is based on the conviction that God is actively involved in his creation and vigorously at work in redemption. Waiting does not mean doing nothing. It is not fatalistic resignation. It means going about our assigned tasks, confident...
Change can force a transformation. Spiritual transformation always includes a usually disconcerting reorientation. It can either help people to find a new meaning, or it can force people to close down and turn slowly bitter. The difference is determined precisely by...
Is my understanding of prayer similar to the “spiritual warfare” practiced by some evangelicals and charismatics? Yes, to the extent that I agree that prayer should be imperative and aggressive. We should be engaged to alter the spirituality of families, corporations,...