The Word was made man and he lived among us – John 1:14In 9 months we will celebrate Christmas. Because of this the church in the west and the east recognizes today as the feast of Annunciation. This is the day we remember the day God first initiated his saving work of incarnation by becoming flesh in the womb of the virgin Mary. For me this festival has a great amount of significance this year. Many of us within Churches… Read more

A couple of my friends here at North Park helped create a new translation of the Bible quite a number of years ago called The New living Translation. If you don’t have one you should really pick it up. It’s a great bible in many ways…. The Publishers of the NLT are giving one away everyday right now through their contest Breakthrough to Clarity so getting your hands on an NLT is easier then ever. PLUS Entering the contest is… Read more

The Christian life is unique among the Abrahamic faiths in the amount of freedom it’s adherents have in the practice of spiritual disciplines. Christians often pray, fast, give alms, make pilgrimages, and make professions of their faith, however within most Christian traditions how that is done by the average lay person is often left to the person themselves to decide. What emerges out of this are a myriad of tools and options all designed to help Christians focus on God… Read more

After moving away from a fundamentalist background to the Episcopal Church Robert E. Webber spent many years of his life helping evangelicals become more deeply rooted in the historical faith they are a part of. He is known to many today through his “Ancient Future” series of book, which have helped provide a context of historical Christian worship and formation for the evangelicals of today. I recently read his book Ancient Future Evangelism (Baker Books, 2003). In it he posits… Read more

You may have read my post on The Dark Night of the Soul a few days ago. I ran across an audio version of the book posted on youtube. If you have 7 or so hours to spare I recommend listening to it. I put it on in the background the other day and listened to the whole thing. It definitely made me think of certain things more hearing it read aloud and not just reading it. Let me know… Read more

Today’s post is from From Richard Wurmbrand’s With God in Solitary Confinement via Father Stephen. Wurmbrand was a Lutheran pastor who was imprisoned for his faith in communist Romania. Here he met orthodox pastors and other people of faith. In his reflections on this he tells us this story.“I once tried to explain ‘systematic theology’ to a Russian pastor of the Underground Church, who had never seen a whole New Testament. Systematically, I began to explain to him the teaching… Read more

Lent is a season that the christian church has historically used as a time to examine itself, to intentionally undergo fasts, and to take time to seek greater union with God. There are few guides that I have found more wise and valuable in understanding these values of Lent then Saint John of the Cross. His work is profoundly powerful and also sheds a great deal of light on the profitability of those times that we today often describe as… Read more

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After watching the video below I think it’s very odd that Mark Driscoll is the pastor of a church called Mars Hill. For those of you who don’t know Mars Hill is the place where the book of Acts records the Apostle Paul’s sermon to the Athenians. In it the apostle Paul introduces the Gospel to the Greeks by proclaiming one of the God’s they serve is really the God of Israel. He then uses a pagan work Phenomena by… Read more

Today marks the 125th Anniversary of the founding of the Evangelical Covenant Church! The Covenant Church is the denomination I am seeking ordination in after I finish seminary. I thought today would be a good day to tell you a little bit about it! Since my relocated to Chicago to study at North Park Theological Seminary many people have asked me why I decided to move. Some wonder why I left at all. Others have questioned why I would choose… Read more