From Tim Suttle’s book titled Shrink: Great is not necessarily good. The enduring power of greatness is its ability to entice human beings to trade the good for the great. Your conscience for a fortune. Your honesty for a kingdom. Your friendship for a championship. Your integrity for a big church. Your soul for a chance […]
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Get In The Way
U.S. Congressman John Lewis was beaten nearly to death by police on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., on March 9, 1965. Last weekend he returned to that bridge to commemorate the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday.” Lewis has said that his parents told him as a young child in the segregated South his parents told him not […]
Continue readingI Love Surprise Endings
From my friend Dick Foth: A man parked his shiny new sports car in a rather sketchy urban neighborhood. As he got out and locked the car he saw a young man staring longingly. “Hey, Mister,” said the kid. “Where’d you get that great set of wheels?” “My brother gave it to me.” “Get outta […]
Continue readingWe Have To Move
From John Sowers: “When the story of earth is told, all that will be remembered is the truth we exchanged. The vulnerable moments. The terrifying risk of love and the care we took to cultivate it.” ~ Don Miller Love requires us to take that terrifying risk. To take that first dangerous step into the […]
Continue readingRejecting The Wrong God
Most people today, in short, assume that the word God refers to a dull, distant, and perhaps dangerous being. Most of those who think like that try hard, not surprisingly, to believe that this being doesn’t exist. “I don’t believe in God,” said the novelist Kingsley Amis, “and I hate him.” They are right. That […]
Continue readingWhat Did God Call That Tree?
“The Bible begins with the creation of a world and a garden, with the fashioning of humanity and two trees. One tree in the garden is strangely named the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Not “the tree of sin,” not “the tree of self-destruction”—the Bible writer gives us a lengthier, more descriptive […]
Continue readingJustice And Love
“Justice is what love looks like in public. “Justice that is only justice soon degenerates into something less than justice. Justice must be rescued by something deeper…and yes, that something is love.” Dr. Cornell West I highly recommend listening to Dr. West’s thought-provoking keynote address at The Trinity Institute’s CREATING COMMON GOOD conference. Please leave a […]
Continue readingCommandment #1
The truth is, Fear has become a false God, one too many of us worship with complete and undying devotion. John Pavlovitz Please leave a comment here.
Continue readingWhat Are You Waiting For?
In my experience, ‘wait’ almost always means ‘never’.” ~ MLK Are you waiting for someone else to organize that thing you care about? Waiting is inactivity. And inactivity is the same thing as opposition, because evil thrives when those who care do nothing. Doing something is a choice. Sitting on the sidelines, wishing someone else […]
Continue readingA Table, A Church
“The table I long for—the church I hope for—is a place where we let others see where the spirit meets the bone and help heal the wounds. The table I long for—the church I hope for—has the grace of the Gospel as its magnificent centerpiece. The table I long for—the church I hope for—is where […]
Continue readingSalt, Yeast, Shade
Unfortunately, most of my secular friends … view the church not as a change agent that can affect all of society but as a place where like-minded people go to feel better about themselves. That image of church stands in sharp contrast to the vision of Jesus, who said little about how believers should behave […]
Continue readingIt’s All About Perspective
If the status quo works for you, if the world benefits you, you might not like the idea of a God who is turning the world upside down. “The last shall be first” sounds great for those who are at the back of the line; but if you are at the top of the food […]
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