spiritchatter
As I read Psalm 55, I couldn't shake the rhythm of betrayal in the gospel of Mark. So I turned from Psalm 55 to the gospel of Mark. As I followed the story of Jesus and Judas, I couldn't help but trace the movement of Psalm 55. Read more
As I read Psalm 55, I couldn't shake the rhythm of betrayal in the gospel of Mark. So I turned from Psalm 55 to the gospel of Mark. As I followed the story of Jesus and Judas, I couldn't help but trace the movement of Psalm 55. Read more
Then on Thursday night, in a nondescript room in the Columbus Ohio convention center, I had a vision of my own relationship with God. Picture a blindfolded ten year old boy being led by a friend or sister or father toward his birthday cake. Notice the jagged steps. Notice the hands held out tentatively in front. Notice the slant of the body—shoulders back and feet probing the floor in front, heels slightly dug in or toes tapping the air. The boy wants to move ahead but is afraid. He doesn’t quite trust where he is heading, so he sticks his toe out but only cautiously, inches at a time. Read more
We’re more than halfway through Lent. It began on Ash Wednesday, March 5th. It ends on Thursday, April 17th. And how’s that self-denial going? Have you kept up your Lenten pledge? You know what I mean. Giving up chocolate was the choice for Lent among the Holy Family Catholic school kids I grew up with in Levittown, New York, in the 60s. This year, one of our Seattle Pacific University students has given up his cell phone for Lent. A... Read more
These largely unsung entrepreneurial women evangelists resolved to settle down and build institutions, often financing them with little more than donations of pennies and crates of apples. Remarkably, many of their institutions continue a century later, including Crawford’s Apostolic Faith Mission, which sends across the globe from its Portland headquarters more than two million pieces of literature every year. Read more
Two decades ago, as I did my class prep for an introductory lecture on American evangelism, resources by and about these men flooded my desk. I began to ask a simple question: Were there any women? I wasn’t aware enough of any women evangelists to pose the question, “Where have all the women gone?” because I didn’t know if they were there in the first place. Twenty years later, I know. Yes, they were there, a whole army of them. Read more
That rundown Ramada Inn is where she first slipped her hand along the back of my neck—and I was smitten. I am still. I love the wife of my youth, who has now become the wife of my middle age. She’s sitting across the kitchen table, with a bowl of fruit, blocks of cheese (we just broke for tea), and student papers dividing us—while memories, old hurts and haunts, past thrills and surprises, nearly forgettable daily episodes too, unite us. Read more
Regardless of your point of view—Jewish or Christian, secular or spiritual, liberal or conservative—it’s invariably tainted by the creation-evolution debate. None of us can read Genesis 1 in a value-free way. None of us can escape this American legacy. Our innocence is bygone. Read more
This sense of yearning — or is it inadequacy? — for something new, something spectacular, is fueled by passage after passage in the Bible. So, braced by my Bible, which lay splayed on the wood floor as I leaned against the radiator and held my head in my hands, I thought for sure I needed more — some novel experience of the spirit. Yet I received only an ambiguous little trickle on a living room floor in a tattered corner of Kansas City. Read more
If you want an actual model for receiving the guidance of the holy spirit, look right here. Experience of the holy spirit rises from regular devotion, with an eye toward that single significant moment when all that we have studied will come together, and we will recognize—perhaps just this once—the long-awaited yet unexpected salvation of God, as surprising as a Nazarene baby carried to the temple, two turtle doves in tow, by his peasant parents. Read more
The Greek word, eucharistia, from which we get the English word, eucharist—the breaking of bread and drinking of wine—means, at its core, thanksgiving. Today, as you eat and drink, remember that you are participating in a sacred feast. Every meal is a eucharist—a cause to give thanks—today, especially. Read more
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In