Pastor's Page
Wisdom from a Comedian
“It’s easier to do trivial things that are urgent than it is to do important things that are not urgent (like thinking). And it’s also easier to do little things that we know we can do than to start on big things we’re not so sure about.” – John Cleese
The fuller context of John Cleese’s ...
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Beginning with an Empty Page
A couple of years ago the writings of Patricia McKillip were recommended by Jeffrey Overstreet. I began with The Alphabet of Thorn, then read The Book of Atrix Wolfe, and am presently reading The Bards of Bone Plain. McKillip is a beautiful writer, and masterfully weaves the power of story and words into her own ...
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Incarnation and Resurrection
Stumbled across some interesting parallels in Luke’s birth and resurrection narratives:
A. An angel of the Lord appears to announce the birth of Jesus to the shepherds, and they are filled with fear (2:8-11).
A’ Two men (angels) appear to the women at the tomb (announcing the resurrection) and the women are afraid (24 5-7).
B. The shepherds ...
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Rambling Review: Oz the Great and Powerful
Alternate title to this post: “Oz the Great and Powerful…Not So Much.”
I have to admit that my expectations were probably a little bit higher than they should have been going into this movie, but the previews were tantalizing; Sam Raimi is the director (Spiderman trilogy); Rachel Weisz is in it; I’ve liked James Franco in ...
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The Answer of Joyful Feasting
“Consciously or subconsciously Christians have accepted the whole ethos of our joyless and business-minded culture. They believe that the only way to be taken ’seriously’ by the ’serious’ – that is, by modern man – is to be serious, and, therefore, to reduce to a symbolic ‘minimum’ what in the past was so tremendously central ...
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Confessing Christ as King
“To confess Christ as King means that the Kingdom He revealed and inaugurated is not only a Kingdom of some distant future, of the ‘beyond’ and thus never conflicting with or contradicting all our other earthly ‘kingdoms’ and loyalties. We belong to this Kingdom here and now, and we belong to it and serve it ...
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John Calvin on Remembering Your Baptism
“…there is no doubt that all pious folk throughout life, whenever they are troubled by a consciousness of their faults, may venture to remind themselves of their baptism, that from it they may be confirmed in assurance of that sole and perpetual cleansing which we have in Christ’s blood.” – Institutes of the Christian Religion, ...
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When Men Want to Play God
“When men want to play God…they can only impose their will over a large area by using implements of force and violence. To get a uniform culture, they have to impose it from above, and this works to nullify all local diversity. In a Biblical society, the larger government sets only general policy, and serves ...
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Mission=Faithfulness
From Lesslie Newbigin’s, The Gospel in a Pluralistic Society:
In discussions about the contemporary mission of the Church it is often said that the Church ought to address itself to the real questions which people are asking. That is to misunderstand the mission of Jesus and the mission of the Church. The world’s questions are not ...
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What Comes Out of Tombs?
This past Sunday’s sermon was on the death of Jesus as recorded in Matthew 27:45-56. As I mentioned, there are things that we cannot fully understand about the death of Jesus, but Matthew even includes those puzzling verses, “The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the holy ones who had fallen asleep were ...
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