Imagine returning home from a night out when traffic suddenly halts. Your eyes are drawn upward to a magic door descending from the heavens, suspended over the city. The mayor and fire department scratch their heads as crowds slowly gather. Soon the entire city is gathered around that mysterious door. It’s cracked a bit, and strange light is piercing the cool evening air. … More Magic Doors & Open Houses
In this week’s lectionary text, 1 Corinthians 9, the Apostle Paul emphasizes his holy obligation and divine calling to proclaim the gospel, representing a countercultural surrender to a higher purpose. I share some of my own experience and challenges of my call to full-time ministry, and conclude by highlighting the current crisis of clergy burnout and offering a call to love and support those who have surrendered their life to full time Christian service. … More The Company of the Summoned
This week’s lectionary features a verse I memorized in Greek in college. Paul warns of the danger of knowledge leading to arrogance and division, urging the coupling of knowledge with love. What does it profit a man to gain worlds of knowledge, if he ends up an insufferable jerk? … More All Puffed Up with No Place to Go
Jesus’ powerful and authoritative encounter with a man possessed by an unclean spirit highlights the contrast between genuine spiritual engagement and complacency. This week’s Gospel text challenges Christians to question their commitment to Jesus and be open to his disruptive influence, aiming to stir them from spiritual apathy to vibrant faith. … More An Unclean Spirit and the Un-Spirited Clean
Paul’s strange and even disturbing instructions to believers in Corinth beg explanation. For Paul, every molecule in the universe had been shifted by the Christ Event, and the imminent return of Jesus placed a question mark next to all ordinary things of life. Pastor Paul’s words likely jolted his first hearers awake and raised many questions–questions we do well to ponder again today. … More The End is Nigh (Sort Of)
The ‘gospel’ many have been taught has drifted from Jesus’ original message. Weighed down by a hyper-individualism, we’ve bought a neat little salvation package whereby sinners bow their heads, pray a prayer, pull the grace lever and a bookkeeping angel with big-rimmed glasses moves your name from the Damned column to the Saved column in Heaven’s database. … More The Time is Fulfilled! Change Your Thinkin’!
Whose company do you prefer? A person who keeps their opinions to themselves and has you constantly walking on eggshells, never knowing what they think or where you stand with them? Or a person who can be blunt and brash at times, but who speaks their mind in every situation? … More Guileless Faith
Let’s talk about hobbits and dwarves, wine barrels and baptism today, asking Paul’s question: “Into what were you baptized?” Like the Bilbo and the dwarves held captive by the Wood-elves, we need to be dunked into the barrel of baptism to rescue us from the bonds of the World, the Flesh and the Devil. … More Barrels Out of Bonds
The Jewish Messianic hope was often contaminated by a nationalist fervor that had God’s people thinking the Messiah was coming to take the country back for God from the unbelieving Gentiles in power, and bring swift judgment on the less zealous and insufficiently patriotic religious compromisers. … More When God’s Glory Appeared & Wept
The story of the wise men on camels bringing their gifts is intertwined with the story of an insecure, paranoid, narcissistic tyrant orchestrating terror and chaos from his palatial office. Listen to the familiar story again, this time with your eyes glued on the pathetic sociopath spinning lies and plotting peril in the Christmas story. … More Tyranny & the Wise Way Out
If you’re like me, this New Year’s Eve you can’t decide if you feel like singing for joy as we put 2020 in the rearview, or whether you feel like crying alone in a corner, sucking your thumb, and loading up on comfort food to numb the pain and trauma of 2020. The wisdom of the Scriptures would suggest we probably need to sing most when we mostly feel like crying. … More A New Year, A New Song
Unlike Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak that allowed him to move through crowds unseen, we are to put on the cloak of Christlike character and witness so everyone can get a glimpse of the Jesus who lives in us. … More Children of the Day
To all God’s beloved living in the United States today, Paul would write urging us, like the church in ancient Rome, to be a set-apart people, setting up little beachheads of Christ’s eternal kingdom right here and now in the swamp of partisan politics and idolatrous nationalistic sentiment. … More A ‘Set Apart’ People in a Partisan Culture
On Facebook and Instagram, we’re voluntarily inscribing the details of our lives in a book for the whole world to read. We’re leaving digital footprints in the social media sand that will someday, when we’re gone, reveal a lot about who we were and the kind of life we led. … More Job’s Digital Footprint
As a 6′-7″ tall dude, I’ve had a hard time relating to Zacchaeus, the “wee little man” who couldn’t see Jesus because of the crowd. In a crowd of people, I am the “tree” that many are trying to see around! … More A New Vantage Point
“The obviously well kept secret of the “ordinary” is that it is made to be a receptacle of the divine, a place where the life of God flows.” -Dallas Willard … More A Breathtaking Reality
LECTIONARY REFLECTION | Psalm 119:97-104 In 1983 a shaggy haired rock ’n roller John Cougar Mellencamp released a new ditty called “The Authority Song.” The song captures the rebellious spirit of a teenager railing against authority figures who, in his mind, love putting people in their place and sucking all the fun out of life. … More Boulevard of Broken Dreams
LECTIONARY REFLECTION | 18th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c This week we’ll board a plane and take the kids to Disney World – the Magic Kingdom where all your dreams can come true with a little waving of the wand (and a lot of cash in your pocket)! If only “wishing upon a … More Magic Wand Spirituality
LECTIONARY REFLECTION | 17th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST LUKE 17:5-10 One of the hardest things to keep in balance is the fact that Jesus Christ is both “lover of our soul” and “Lord of the universe.” He’s beloved friend and coming King. One moment he is wooing us with his tender compassion and the next he … More Genies & Masters
LECTIONARY REFLECTION | PROPER 20 | Jeremiah 8:18-9:1 We are really good at cherry-picking inspirational Bible verses, yanking them out of context, and printing them on t-shirts and those inspiring “Daily Verse Calendars.” While I’m all for a daily pick-me-up, this tendency also has a downside to consider. The Hallmark inspirational calendar can subtly give us … More Uninspiring Daily Verses
LECTIONARY REFLECTION | HOLY CROSS | SEPTEMBER 14, 2019 John 3:13-17 I have recently been emphasizing that much Christian teaching and practice today focuses on “right doing,” while other Christian teaching and practice (e.g., Contemplative tradition) throughout the centuries has emphasized the importance of spiritual “seeing” or illumination or vision. I have been re-reading John’s … More Look and Live
LECTIONARY REFLECTION | Luke 13:10-17; Psalm 71:1-6 “Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, … More Childhood Wounds
ISAIAH 5:1-7; PS. 80:1-2, 8-19; HEB 11:37-12:1 “They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground…Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is … More Treasures New & Old
LECTIONARY REFLECTION| LUKE 11:1-13 NEWS FLASH! JESUS WAS NOT A CHRISTIAN! Most people, Christians and non-Christians alike, recognize that Jesus Christ is the center of the Christian faith. Even the name of our religion – CHRISTianity – reflects the importance of Jesus Christ to us. Christians, as a group, tend to forget that Jesus was a … More Jesus-Shaped Prayer (Mike Fox)
LECTIONARY REFLECTION | COLOSSIANS 1:1-14 This week’s New Testament lesson comes from Paul’s letter to the church at Colossae. Read full passage here. Paul does a couple things here that we can learn from and imitate. First, Paul takes the time to say thank you. Paul affirms who the Colossians are right now – “To God’s … More Two Go-To Habits (Mike Fox)
Kingdom Harbor 