I already know what verse will be on my gravemarker. Or urn, depending on how all that goes.It's Philippians 1:21: Christ in me is to live, to die is to gain.I first heard it in a song, as a relatively new Christian attending a campus fellowship group at my college....
Ever since I entered full-time ministry in 1990, I've missed Breakfast At Wimbledon. The Men's Final always starts at 9 a.m. Eastern time on the concluding Sunday of the tournament. Tennis fans are supposed to eat strawberries and watch tennis.And I'm at work at that...
Six weeks ago, I admitted in a post that I get more excited over some series than others, and that unChristian was one of those series.Many of you now know why.We spread the teaching around.The music hit the mark.Videos brought home the point.And the people of Good...
Psalm 63:1 begins with some familiar words:O God, you are my God,earnestly I seek you;But then there's a twist in the next phrase, a twist that has me thinking:my soul thirst for you,my body longs for you,A body that longs for God? It sounds too physical, too sensual,...
Hebrews 13:4 sounds quaint, almost like a relic in 21st Century life:Marriage is to be held in honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled.Sounds so . . . old, doesn't it? Even that word "undefiled" (also translated as "pure") has an ancient, almost...
So Julie's birthday was last week. June 28th, to be exact.On Thursday, June 25, I came up with a brainstorm on a series of great gifts for her. I was down a break point in the final set, but I felt like I had come through with a winner. Just in time.So I ordered the...
The word came to me during the singing of "All Because Of Jesus" at yesterday's 8:30 service: "George is here." Immediately, I got nervous."George," you see, is my boss. In Methodist parlance, he is my District Superintendent -- the pastor/boss to the roughly 50 or so...
This is the image that many people have of Christians and of churches. As places full of judging and lacking in grace. As we plunge further into the adventure that is unChristian, this Sunday we'll see what's really behind the judgmental attitudes so many of Jesus'...
I am always reading something. And while I like biographies, sports books, and occasionally even religious books, good novels remain my favorites.I like both "popular" novels that you read while sitting on the beach, and the more "serious" works about which you would...
Methodists have an interesting term we call prevenient grace.Coined by John Wesley, the founder of the movement in the 1700s that ultimately became the Methodist church, prevenient grace literally meanes "the grace that goes before." God's grace is at work in people's...