As we discussed in the previous post, from our earliest days, we know what it’s like to be excluded. Some of us spend too much of our lives trying to be included in whichever group is important to us. And far too often, that exclusive group is the church. But that’s not the church as…

Do you remember when you were a kid? One of the most difficult times was when you were on the playground, and you were going to play a game, and so you decided to choose up teams. Do you remember? There were always two people, two captains who were supposed to choose their teams. And…

I’ve heard the Magnificat, the Song of Mary in Luke 2:46-55, for decades. And the tendency with any familiar passage is to let it roll over your head and therefore fail to wrestle with its content or its import. I confess I’ve often had that attitude with this one. But when I sat down, opened…

In my last post, we discussed living out the mission of Luke-Acts in today’s world and ended with a quote from Robert Heaney, “Mission is, in fact, not defined by us. Mission is defined by God.” Spirit-filled Cosmos But to live in a way that somehow looks like God’s mission, we must consider the “spirit-filled…

Albert John Luthuli, a black native South African, was a deeply committed Christian man. He was, in fact, the child of Seventh-Day Adventist missionaries but was eventually confirmed and commissioned as a lay preacher. And it was in this context, with a focus on evangelism, that Luthuli came face to face with this truth: If…

Four men approach Jesus with a paralytic. It’s an incredibly familiar story, told in a couple of different settings in the gospels. But did you notice what comes out of Jesus’s mouth? As it’s translated here, “Take heart” (Matt. 9:2b), or (more accurately), “Stay courageous.” “Your sins are forgiven.” And he also says, “Your sins…

Several years ago, I had organized a Good Friday service that was a combination of music and meditations. And my music director brought in a young viola player for an obligato part in a choral piece. I went up before the service to introduce myself, and we chatted for a little bit. As might be…

A prayer movement taking place in England is creating the most extraordinary missionaries. One group takes literally what Jesus said to his disciples. They pray, and they say, “OK, Lord, where do you want us to go?” They’re willing. And we must be willing, too. But how? Willing to Go At first, these missionaries would…

I want you to imagine with me a little of what life might have been like for those early believers who saw Jesus ascend into heaven and waited for him in the Upper Room. You can read the real story in the first and second chapters of Acts. But for just a few minutes, let’s…

As I reeled from the recent shootings in Baton Rouge, St. Paul, and Dallas, I knew I had to say something. Unexpressed grief easily becomes indifference, something no one needs. So what do we need? I believe times like these call not for desperate measures but a deliberate reach. So what does that look like…