Slowing Down and Finding Rhythm
2020 will be remembered as the year when everything was disrupted. Church was disrupted – we are meeting in the afternoons in a different church’s parking lot under a tent. School has been disrupted with many children attending classes online. Jobs have been lost, furloughed, and many more are now working from home. At the…
How Can We Sing?
A group of shell-shocked refugees stood in the midst of an unending plain under the hot scorching Babylonian sun. Their homes were piles of ash hundreds of miles to the West. Their temple, the center of their worship, was a pile of rubble. Then one of the refugees began to sing a mournful tune: Psalm…
Gospel Meditation Example
Last week, I wrote about a spiritual practice called “Gospel Meditation”. This week, I thought I would include an example of a gospel meditation that I did a few weeks ago. It is one thing to describe something, it is sometimes clearer to demonstrate it. I begin with prayer: “Father, help me encounter Jesus Christ…
Gospel Meditation
The difference between knowing about God and knowing God is transformation. If simply collecting information about God changed us, then James would not have written: James 2:19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder. Satan and his demons certainly have amassed information about God, but they…
Fasting
There is a dramatic scene at the end of the book of Jonah where an entire city, the city of Nineveh, is confronted with the news that God is about to destroy them. How do they respond to impending judgment? They declare a fast. The king decrees that no one, not even their animals, is…
Community Worship
It may seem to be an odd time to be talking about the necessity of community worship when we have not been meeting together in person for several months. But then again, perhaps at no other time have we felt the importance of gathering together with fellow followers of Jesus more than right now. Sometimes…
Discipling Friendships
I want to begin with a bold and provocative statement: it is nearly impossible to grow as a Christian by yourself. We need other people to walk with us. I say this because we have a relational God and a relational faith. Have you ever stopped to think about the fact that the God we…
Generosity
Grace is any gift that God gives to undeserving sinners. God’s forgiveness is grace. Our spiritual gifts, the special abilities that we have been given by God to strengthen the church, are also grace. But have you ever thought of your generosity to others as God’s grace to you? I didn’t until I came across…
Sabbath
“Who are you when you are not working?” That question makes me feel uncomfortable because the answer terrifies me. I have to be productive in order to have a “good day” because without accomplishments I am nothing. That is a problem. I recognize that I am more driven than most, but have you ever noticed…
Praying for Someone on the Spot
Dave and I were standing on the sidewalk outside of his parent’s house. He had just shared something that was troubling him and I, without a lot of forethought, offered to pray for him. So we prayed right there. When we opened our eyes, I was a little surprised to see how much Dave was…
Tic-Tac-Toe Prayer
I think we were all shocked when our state government ordered all gatherings greater than ten people to be shut down. Our public worship services were canceled for the first time since the Spanish Flu of 1918. It has now been six weeks. This has raised many questions: how can we be the church if…
Praying Through the Psalms
“You’ve never prayed the psalms?” said my professor incredulously. A quick look at the blank faces of a room full of seminary students confirmed that we weren’t joking. It had never occurred to us. “The psalms are a collection of 150 of the greatest Holy Spirit prayers ever recorded. They were placed in the Bible…
The Lord’s Prayer
Prayer is one of two daily spiritual practices that are key to keeping spiritually fit. We learned in our last post that prayer is a two-way conversation with God that involves both listening and speaking. We already covered silence as the listening aspect of prayer, this week we will look at our part of the…
Silence
In our last post, we explored the idea of keeping spiritually fit during the coronavirus. There are two core exercises that are key to spiritual fitness: Bible reading and prayer. We dealt with Bible reading in the last post, and so we will be looking at prayer in these next two posts. Prayer is nothing…
Daily Bible Reading
The importance of Daily Bible Reading For many of you, the corona-virus has meant that you have spent a lot more time at home. The internet is full of ideas of how you can keep yourself physically fit and mentally sharp as you prepare for weeks of boredom and isolation. Have you given some thought…
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