A relationship with no religion is a fantasy - and a religion with no relationship is vanity. The gospel confronts humanity with the inseparable interplay of both. A relationship that informs religious liturgy and a religion that brings continuous remembrance of a transformative relationship.
Let Us Make
Trinity Sunday asks the church to do what Athanasius spent his life doing: to think carefully about who God is...
Would That All the Lord’s People Were Prophets
Samuel Mills, the student who had organized the meeting, had been burdened for months by the question of whether American Christians had any obligation to take the gospel beyond their own borders.
Between the Cloud and the Fire
August 13, 1727, during a communion service at the village church in Berthelsdorf, the Spirit of God fell on the congregation in a way that marked every person present.
Come and Hear
The psalmist said, "Come and hear." The question for each of us is whether we have something to say when someone takes us up on the invitation.
Into Your Hand
Each generation of faith picks up the same words and speaks them into a new situation, trusting the same God who has been revealed with increasing clarity.
The Pastor and the Pasture
They gathered their congregations in remote hillsides and moorlands for illegal outdoor worship called conventicles, with lookouts on the ridgelines watching for government dragoons. And in those hidden fields, hunted pastors led scattered flocks to literal pastures, singing Psalm 23 from the Scottish Metrical Psalter together.
Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain
The Wizard of Oz says, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”. The gospel says to come, look closely.
The Path of Life Begins at an Empty Tomb
Picture it: a man who had staked his entire life on the resurrection of Jesus, walking past hundreds of monuments to the dead, carrying a message that death had been defeated.
I Shall Not Die, But Live
The camp doctor who witnessed his execution later recalled that Bonhoeffer knelt in prayer before walking to the scaffold. His last recorded words, spoken to a fellow prisoner that morning, were: "This is the end. For me, the beginning of life."
Famous Last Words
Archaeologists have found this same word written across ancient receipts and invoices in the Mediterranean world. It was the word you wrote when a debt had been fully satisfied. Jesus chose a word the entire ancient world would recognize as a statement of completed transaction.
Josh Cehulik 