The season of Advent is only four weeks long and before you know it the celebration of the Christ Child on Christmas morning is just about here. Advent literally means the significant arrival of some person or event. Like so many seasons of the Church Year (and themes of Christianity itself) there are multiple layers […]
Tag: Holy Spirit
On Hope and Despair
When waiting in the dark for God, there are two companions at our side: hope and despair. One is there to comfort and the other is there to destroy. The story of Jesus’ birth and the season of Advent urge us to have hope when despair is leaning heavily on our spirit, or even threatening […]
On Darkness
This time of year is sometimes called “the season of light” as we light candles and other festive decorations. It is equally though the season of darkness. While this is particularly true in the Northern Hemisphere, it is also true from the lens of Advent. This season of the Church Calendar is about both light […]
On the Calendar
I have come to really appreciate the seasons of the church year—Advent, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost and Ordinary Time. These are the primary seasons of the Liturgical Calendar that I hope to reflect on over the next year in this series of writings. Growing up in the American evangelical church, I used to […]
On Again, Off Again, On Again
My writing behavior on here has always been “on” for a while then “off” for a longer while. Up until recently, I have felt quite guilty about this, especially how my endings are often abrupt and unsettled. Between my various writing phases on this blog, my thinking on the subjects addressed here never stops. The […]
On Being in the Wilderness
The Lenten journey takes us into the wilderness. This means different things for different people. For some it is a place they are already at and for others it is a foreign place. For all of us, we will find the same two forces at work in the wilderness: Jesus and Satan. The writings of […]
On Rebuke and Affirmation
Naturally I’m a slow reader, often going at a mental cadence akin to a pony ride. When I read the Bible this is usually the case as well. Sometimes, though, I listen to an audio recording of Scripture and that experience is as if I am suddenly galloping on a horse and experiencing a familiar […]
On The Saints
The work of the Reformation does not end with the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation by any means. Today is All Saints’ Day, and on this day we remember all those who have gone before us, glorifying God through their lives on earth, for the sake of Jesus Christ and the Eternal Kingdom. We are […]
On Money
A key frustration of Martin Luther was how the church glorified and used money. He saw that the church in his day distorted the good news of Christ by offering salvation in exchange for money. And when the church became focused on money it ceased being the church. It stopped serving God. I wonder if […]
On Technology
If Martin Luther’s 95 theses were the match igniting the flame of the Reformation, technology was the wind that caused that flame to become a wildfire. Without the printing press (the technological marvel of Luther’s era), the flame of the Reformation might have burned out quickly and not have re-shaped the western world as much as […]
Relevant Reformation 