I highly recommend that everyone interested to grow in faith make time each day to have a quiet time with God. It’s simple. Set aside time each day to ask God to speak to you, read the assigned text, think/meditate on what it tells you about God, the world, or yourself, and ask God to guide you through the day.
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- Braving the Wilderness with Brene Brown and Jesus This week we will preach on Matthew 4:1-17. The key text is vv. 1-11 where Jesus is led into the wilderness for 40 days and faces temptation. You can see my visual commentary on it at the Cartoonist’s Guide to Matthew. Today, however, I want to share a video that interviews Brene Brown about her ...
- Finding Our Way through Fire and Water Thirty years have passed. The little boys of Matthew chapters 1 and 2 are now grown up. Elizabeth’s son, John, is a wild man, living out in the wilderness, eating locusts and honey, wearing a robe made of camel’s hair. He is preaching a bombastic message of repentance and coming judgment, and people are flocking ...
- Preparing for Epiphany and Matthew Page 2 “Aha!” “Eureka!” “I see it now!” All of these exclamations share the spirit of Epiphany. The Greek word is epiphaneia. It comes from the compound word epi=on,to + phainein=to show. We call this season of the year Epiphany because it is the time when Jesus shows up on the human stage and begins his ministry. The ironic thing is ...
- Matthew, Genealogies and Star Wars There seems to be an increasing interest in genealogies and ancestry lately. Several companies advertise that you can send in a swab from your cheek and they can tell you what part of the world your ancestors inhabited. This is a helpful trend for those of us preaching the Narrative Lectionary this weekend. The text is ...
- Who Brings Down the Mighty? The Final Advent Candle to be lit this weekend is named Love. The text is Luke 1:46-55. This passage is famously called The Magnificat. It is the song Mary sang after her cousin Elizabeth praised her for believing God’s Promise. Here’s the interesting thing about this Advent Candle and this passage: The Word love does not ...
- Smashing Plates, Yowies, and Peace Do you find it difficult to think of peace in our world today? Last week we lit the candle of hope. This week we light the candle of peace. Really? It doesn’t seem like there is a lot of peace in our world. I had the privilege of hanging out with our YOWIES last night. That’s ...
- Preparing to Light the Candle of Peace for Advent 2 This morning I was preparing for the upcoming week of Advent 2: The Candle of Peace. Our two main texts are Luke 1:68-79 and Luke 3:1-6. I was reminded of some work that I did in these texts the last time I preached through Luke. They are appropriate to repost here for two reasons: We will ...
- A Visual Meditation on Thanksgiving Our theme for this weekend is “Grateful” and the texts are Deuteronomy 26:1-11 and Luke 17:11-19. I offer the illustration above as a visual meditation on the Greek word that we translate giving thanks. It is the word used when the one Samaritan leper returns to thank Jesus for healing him in Luke 17:16. It is ...
- Shabbat Shalom | Standing in Solidarity with our Jewish Siblings Shabbat Shalom. That is the greeting you receive when you enter a Sabbath Service at a synagogue. It means Sabbath Peace. Those words had deep meaning for me last night. My two adult sons accompanied me as I met some of our ninth grade Confirmation students and mentors at Temple Israel in Minneapolis to experience a ...
- All Hallow’s Eve | A Visual Meditation on All Saints Day Worship Millions of children will flood the streets of our neighborhoods across the country today. It is this strange moment when we have collectively agreed that it is OK for perfect strangers to knock on our doors in masks, yell at us, demand candy, and walk away. That is one way to do community. This morning I ...
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