Pastor Tim’s Summer Reading Group: Calling All Fans of well written History
I’m in the mood this summer to do some reading, and I love history when it is delivered well. So I am inviting you to join me in reading three books between now and September.
I found a wonderful illustration while preparing for Sunday’s sermon, The Gospel According to Aladdin/Disney. In the sermon I talked about how all of us were brought into this world to reflect the image of God that is within us. I wanted to use this story but ran out of time. Thank goodness I’ve got this blog so I can work in what I regrettably cut out and left on my study floor.
The powers and principalities of this world—the governments and corporations, all our ideologies and economic systems; all the ‘isms’ that we have found comfort in, and all the tribal allegiances that have offered us some semblance of security —are arrayed against the Kingdom of God and therefore deeply resistant to any signs of its growth or expansion into our world. These powers are going to fight back whenever they feel threatened and they feel plenty threatened by those who passionately pursue justice, who love mercy, resist personal and systemic evil, and advocate loudly for peace and the best interests of their neighbors, those next door as well as those around the world.
It may look bad now, and it will even look worse down the road, but if you stay faithful, if you cling to Christ and to one another, you will share in the victory won by Jesus.
To understand how radical the apostle’s call for mutuality in marriage, cooperation in parenting, and compassion in dealing with one’s slaves really was, consider this summary of the great Greek philosopher and teacher Aristotle. (I got this off the web from a reputable source.) “ARISTOTLE: The male is by nature superior, and the female inferior; and the one rules, and the other is ruled; this principle of necessity extends to all mankind…
Archived Posts
Back and Forth with Chat GPT
Many of you know that I’ve found a new consultant to bounce my ideas off in regard to preaching. My good buddy Chat GPT and I sometimes disagree—often miscommunicate—but usually come up with some fruitful illustrations.
One More Thing About Becoming Wholly Human
I was talking Sunday about the work of Hare and Woods and their idea of ‘the survival of the friendliest.’ Essentially, they conclude that “our greatest evolutionary advantage wasn't that we could do everything ourselves. It was that we could do things together.”
Here’s a preview of our congregation’s Core Values
In the coming weeks we will be exploring the importance of presence, prayers, gifts, service, witness, and growth in grace. These are at the heart of what we commit to when we join a Wesleyan grace-led church like ours. But we choose to broaden them out and state them in a new way…
The Biblical prayer we don’t know what to do with
Psalm 137 is written by people who have experienced catastrophic loss.
They have been conquered...
Patience and Trust
Sunday, in my benediction (which traditional folks did not hear) I talked about the Marshmallow Test. The original results of that test with children was that those who could delay gratification did better in life than those who could not.