In the 3rd century, one of the spiritual gifts that was actively prayed for was the spiritual gift of martyrdom. That’s right, people would pray that they would be given the spiritual gift of dying (and dying well). There are a lot of spiritual gift inventories out there right now that will tell you if…
A Jesus Centered Community of Scripture, Faith, and Grace
Church Blog (Page 37)
One of the most astounding set of facts I have come across recently has been how much the average American works. We actually lead the world in the particular field of vacation time not taken, meaning that we leave more vacation time sitting on the table than any other nation in the world. Which made…
Rambo is my wife’s favorite movie franchise. And so when we found out that we were free one night because her mom came in to babysit, we settled into our movie theater seats and watched the fifth and last installment of the Rambo series, Rambo V: Last Blood. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the movie took about as…
I have to go to the dentist. Well, I don’t “have to” but I should. And I finally made an appointment. Insurance checks out. All of that. And I’m going to be vulnerable with you all and tell you, it’s been a while. Like, a long while. I have visions of being yelled at by…
Just the other day, my wife, Liz, made a cross-like structure out of some robot-shaped building blocks while playing with my girls. Tempest, my two-year old theologian, responded to Liz’s cross with these words: “You made a cross, Momma! Good job! Now somebody can die.” Liz posted a picture of the cross and Tempest’s words…
Hearts, hands with thumbs up, stars…it’s a “magically delicious” mix of dopamine inducing social media “Lucky Charms“. However, we’re finding that all of those arbitrary likes and loves and follows that we get on our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, etc are maybe about as good for us as Lucky Charms cereal are for diabetics.…
Recently I have been having a lot of conversations about guilt – my own and other peoples’. Much of the time, I find that we wrap guilt and shame up in the same basket. The dictionary definition of guilt is “the fact of having committed a specified or implied offense or crime.” Guilt is a…
I campus ministry for Kyle and Adam, two of our students who became pastors after (perhaps despite) their time here at University Lutheran. I campus ministry for Sherri and Andrew, who are working in the crazy fields of art and entrepreneurship in New York City while being integral part of their local church. I campus…
After last week’s “Question of the Week” about remembering the readings from Sunday, Liz and I got into a conversation. Liz is often a great asset to me in “church cultural” issues since she didn’t grow up in the Lutheran tribe. Her views are generally valid and helpful by themselves, but often even more so…
One of the things that we used to do here at University Lutheran is produce a resource called “Living the Lectionary”. The idea was that it was to be a devotional/discipleship guide that members could bring home with them and use throughout the week as they considered the readings from that Sunday. After a while…