Why Not Depressed?
How one sees the world makes all the difference when confronted with the threat of mental depression, writes the Rev. Greg Weeks.
View ArticleChoose Life, Peace, and Love
Troubled as our times are, we can still choose to follow the ideals put forth during historic times of change when God's people were challenged, writes the Rev. Dan Morley.
View ArticleTwists and Turns: Celebrating Vulnerability
What is sacrificed at the altar of transactional relationships? Vulnerability. You don’t want folks to see the twists and turns of your life that might un-burnish your reputation. But without...
View ArticleGod's Apology
The Rev. Jim Burklo imagines how God would explain the divine relationship with humans over millennia, and apologize for when things didn't go well.
View ArticleTake a Risk: Live a Great Story
Too often we limit ourselves to the small concerns of our egos and tribes, when we could take part in any number of Great Stories, writes Paul Graves.
View ArticleA Chat with Mickey at Bubba-Doo’s about Whether I Preach the Gospel or Not
A sort-of imaginary conversation at a country store seesaws between judgment for sin and the abundance of grace.
View ArticleLove and the Christian Way of Being in the World
Responding to a recent article by Dr. David W. Scott, Don Manning-Miller contends that Christians' lifestyle – the way they live ethically in the world – is crucial to the proclamation and practice of...
View ArticleThe Law of Love
Love is the standard for how we are to behave. Love defines who we are. Love is the fence that guards us from harmful activity towards ourselves or others.
View ArticleIs it Possible to Love One Another as Jesus Loves Us?
is it still possible to love one another as Jesus loved us? We live in a world of us versus them, a culture of contempt. We are broken into camps around politics, theology, and understandings of race....
View ArticleEvangelism: A Witness to Love Not a Dirty Word
Our practice of evangelism is often captive to stereotypes and false perceptions. F. Douglas Powe Jr. says we can redeem evangelism by moving beyond marketing or manipulation to reclaim a a...
View ArticleDo Unto Others?
Whose position on gender, race, and sexuality is true? To decide one would have to rise above both positions and place them against some transcendent measure of truth. And that is impossible. So how...
View ArticleLove Your Enemies Within
The mystery of romantic and filial love is staggering enough. But Jesus' admonition to us to love our enemies goes even further into the realm of the ineffable. Even thinking about it, much less...
View ArticleWhat’s Love Got to Do with It?
Too seldom, we forget authentic love challenges us to go deeper into our human need for connection, writes Paul Graves.
View ArticleI Was Wrong About… Love
When we take on injustice, our actions must come from a place of love, rather than hate. Compassion rather than disdain, aligning with “God’s highest energies.”
View ArticleWhat Does It Mean to Be Holy?
It is not easy to be a follower of Jesus. Anyone who thinks it is, is simply not listening to him.
View ArticleWhat Does Love Look Like Today?
Typically unsettled by Lent, the Rev. Cindy Hickman this year uses a focus question: “what does love look like today?”
View ArticleIs That All There Is?
The Rev. Jim Burklo counsels a correspondent who has "deconstructed" his faith to look for places where God's love is expressed.
View ArticleLove Is Looking Back at Us
Building on her last post, "What Does Love Look Like Today?", the Rev. Cindy Hickman challenges us to see, through the Easter event, how love might be looking at us to do its work in the world.
View ArticleHating the New Thing in a Different Way
The thing about loving people as they are but expecting them to change is that we will never love them.
View ArticleAt the Gate: The Power of Love
A new book by Thomas Jay Oord proposes Christians discard the longstanding view of God as all-powerful, replacing it with the concept of God as all-loving, an idea that Dr. Steve Harper endorses.
View ArticleWhy Jesus Loves You
It takes a lot of courage to love the traitor. It takes a lot of grace to see the one who betrays you is also a child of God. It takes a lot of mercy to overcome the hate harbored toward the one who...
View ArticleThere IS A Right Answer Here
The Rev. Charlie Baber holds fiercely to hope that loving Jesus might actually bear the fruit of that kind of selfless love in the world. But he despairs when instead he sees Christians claim to...
View ArticleThe Allure of Love
The early Christians didn't bring people to Jesus through the contemporary approach of conviction of sin and repentance. Instead, they simply loved one another and their communities, and it drew people...
View ArticleBearing with One Another
How do any of us come to the place of realness and how do we know we speak to the real God?
View ArticleThe Question We All Carry
Every person carries the same question: “Am I loved?” Every soul on the planet wants to know if anyone cares about them. Everyone wants to be seen as someone who is valued and accepted.
View ArticleLove!
Five times in Scripture Jesus commanded us to love, turning that word of feeling into a call to action. Usually, UM Creation Justice Movement Tips point to actions—the HOW to love. This month, however,...
View ArticleLove: The Root of All the Rest
As God’s beloved, through whom everyone and everything is made (John 1:3), Jesus lived and led by love. The story of Jesus’ conversation with the rich young ruler is a good example.
View ArticleYou Can't Hurry (Self) Love
Layperson Alex Johnson finds that Lent takes on a different, more complex role in his spiritual journey, discerning how to perform Lenten practices without disparaging his self-worth.
View ArticleA Victory for Unpredictability
In the Revised Common Lectionary, there are 72 scripture readings suggested for the 8 days starting on Palm Sunday through Easter - 72! What can you say that your Sunday school class hasn't heard a...
View ArticleThe Lord is Shepherd, is Good/True, is Love
Post-Easter scriptures combine to present Jesus in a series of images that first-century Christians would easily recognize: a good shepherd, bread, vines, and finally, love.
View Article
