ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSSeptember 11, 2024Today is my wife’s birthday. She is celebrating it as most people celebrate a new year of life—she is getting a crown. No! Not one that you wear on your head but that requires a dentist. Happy birthday! With all seriousness, I think about this day as a microcosm of life. In a 24-hour period, we can have some wonderful celebrations, spend a lot of
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSSeptember 10, 2024Sunday, I started talking broadly about Spiritual Gifts. It is important to make some distinctions, as that is a phrase that is tossed around within the church without often defining what is means. To do so, let’s talk about what Spiritual Gifts are not. First, they are different than the Fruit of the Spirit. In Galatians 5, the Apostle Paul tells us that the Fruit
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSSeptember 9, 2024Prayer for the Week: Creative One, Creating Spirit, there is a forever work of making and remaking, shaping and reshaping of our lives. This assumes that we have not allowed the clay of our souls to be fired in a kiln of hopelessness, loneliness, or forsakenness. Yet too often, life and circumstance appear to have solidified and fossilized any possibility of any potentiality. It can
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSSeptember 8, 2024Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “The person who loves their dream of community will destroy community, but the person who loves those around them will create community.” Do we ever focus on the wrong thing even though we have convinced ourselves it is the right thing? Community is the abstract. But people should be the focus of our mission; they are the reality to which we have
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSSeptember 7, 2024What does giving of ourselves teach us? What does it mean when we give in such a way that a challenging choice is required? What does it do to a person when they must give up something they want or like so they can give? Jesus spoke of a woman who gave, not from her abundance but from her poverty (Mark 12:44). It speaks of
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSSeptember 6, 2024You have seen on the news a story of the Pope visiting Indonesia, a predominately Muslim country. There is a great deal of symbolism in this visit, including the Pope meeting with the Grand Imam of the Istqlal Mosque in Jakarta. This mosque stands across the street from the Catholic cathedral. What I did not know until this visit was that a tunnel was dug
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSSeptember 5, 2024At the conferences I am attending in Washington, D.C., a speaker used the phrase: Empathy fatigue. Come to find out, there are those who feel the deep hurt around us, but they do not know how or where to begin helping. They often feel overwhelmed and powerless by the suffering. I think we’ve all been there in one time or another, and there are plenty
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSSeptember 4, 2024In Sunday’s sermon, I talked about empathy, and specifically the need to truly listen if there is going to be empathy. I received a number of notes in the last couple of days about the sermon, and in one of them, this individual suggested that we see a lot of so-called compassion that has a specific end in mind. Or, to say it another way,
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSSeptember 3, 2024On September 19, we will begin a new Tuesday daytime study based on Max Lucado’s book, “You Are Never Alone.” The opening statement on a description of the study is, “Each of us longs for Someone who will meet us in the midst of life’s messes.” For all of you who have never experienced a life mess, you are exempt and freed from reading another
ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHINGSSeptember 2, 2024Prayer for the Week: We give you thanks, Good and Gracious God, for all those who do the good and important work in this world. And on this Labor Day, we are mindful of the work that occurred and continues to occur behind the work. There are many good employers, but justice and safety have not always been a priority for some. You are the