“Advent is not simply an invitation to set our houses in order for his birth. Advent is an urgent opportunity to set our houses in order for Jesus’ return. By taking the opportunity to rightly order our lives, we may anticipate the glorious return of Jesus joyfully.”
Category: Accents of the Academy
Justus Hunter ~ Noise Without Word: Worship in a World of Static
“Ours is an age of noise. We exchange our history for comforting lies of other gods. We exchange our worship for spectacles. We exchange true justice for parodies, imitations, mimicry. We fill our lives with noise. We silence the Word of the Lord.
But the Word comes nevertheless, not in an earthquake or fire or rushing wind, but in this man, Jesus the Christ.”
Suzanne Nicholson ~ Answers in the Darkness: A Prayer
And so you teach me:
Certainty has become my idol.
Predictability.
Expectations met.
That looks like faith to me:
I ask, knowing that you can.
Priscilla Hammond ~ Decision-Making for Productive Change
When change “just happens,” it never happens to move the organization’s goals forward.
Aaron Perry ~ Desire and Duty in Everyday Life: The Narrative of Ethics
“There is membership not in what is owed to ourselves, but in what is owed to Christ because we are now in him.”
Priscilla Hammond ~ When Pastors Face Dysfunction: Leading Change for Congregational Health
How do we know when an organization isn’t healthy?
Suzanne Nicholson ~ Checking Your Blind Spots: Preaching in the Gaps
Preachers tend to have favorite passages and topics for preaching and teaching. If you don’t preach from the Revised Common Lectionary each week, it can be easy to fall into predictable patterns that limit your congregation’s exposure to the full range of God’s Word. We all have blind spots, and it’s worth asking where we might be missing the opportunity to address a pressing need.
Brian Yeich ~ Where Is Your Zeal Focused? Lessons from Francis Asbury
“Asbury’s zeal for God and his commitment to preach and teach the gospel is now legendary, but it was never meant to be extraordinary – it was meant to be the ordinary work of everyday Methodists.”
Tammie Grimm ~ The Fundamentals of Baseball (and the Methodist Movement)
“The ordinances of God are the fundamentals of how we get initiated into faith. Repetitive practice and exposure to prayer, worship, Scripture reading and study, the Eucharist and even the lost discipline of fasting all help to mature us as Christian disciples.”
Justus Hunter ~ Promising the Mystery of Wisdom
God fulfills his promises. We know this. But we often struggle to see how. Because the promises God makes and the promises we would like aren’t always the same. His wisdom is not ours.