Where Are The Wise Men?

Bart on his latest mission:we get to make things up as we go along, and take chances on people that nobody else would take chances on, and hold our breath together. And we get to do all that with the almost giddy confidence that all the love in the world is on our side.You may [...]

I participated in theCDP’s mix-tape trade (okay, they were all CD’s — mine was cut from iTunes, probably like many others).  The mix was supposed to be in by Feb 14 and theCDP said that the theme was supposed to about love — you know, let’s-get-in-the-mood stuff. I decided to refrain from that and do [...]

My brother-in-law Rick was lamenting the state of holiday church services. While there is nothing wrong with Christmas Eve or Easter Services in general, he said that they lacked what he called “grit” — realness, authenticity, and transparency. To give an example, Rick was asked to pick a version of the Christmas story [...]

We had another Faith and Work lunch today.  The topic was “Are We Working Too Much?”  We were given an article that refuted the claim that we work too much and gave some good evidence to the contrary.  But the article was written in 1993 and work has changed a lot since then — we [...]

I was taking the last of my New Employee classes this week.  One class was on communication and one of the Big Ideas from that class was “Compliance vs Commitment ” and that you really want people to be committed to what you are saying as opposed to just complying.  This passed through my brain [...]

There was a good article in our last denominational magazine called “Where Did Our Young Adults Go?” In it, they talked about the fact that the Christian Reformed denomination don’t have many young adults, which is defined as people in their 20’s and 30’s. The article also has some thoughts from people who [...]

Dawn Eden has a great post about her coming to faith, which ended her struggle with depression six months later. It is also note worthy how a book (well, a Chesterton book) got her to see the delight in every day things.  And that real rebellion against the world should be hope, not darkness.Powered by ScribeFire.

A great blog post on someone reading Chesterton for the first time.  Of course, he chose Orothdoxy which is one of his better books, but not totally accessible.  The reviewer didn’t quite understand Chesterton’s reliance on the mystic aspect of Christianity, but he did give it a good read and had deep understanding.  For those [...]

Scott McKnight hits things hard in this essay Getting the Gospel Right if we preach a gospel that is entirely focused on “getting right with God” but which does not include in that presentation that God’s intent is to form a community (the Church) in which restored persons live out this Christ-shaped and Spirit-directed [...]

Tonight I have my last duty as a deacon at church.  My replacement has been voted in and tonight we are having our first-annual retreat as kind of a hand-off to the new and a send-off to the old.  Maybe that send off will be a drop-kick out the door, I’m not sure.It’s been an [...]