Many of you know that I have been involved on numerous occasions with leaders in the Churches of Christ, one of America’s largely ignored (by evangelicals and the media) but large groups of Christians. I have spoken to groups in Nashville, Dallas, Abilene, Lubbock and Malibu, and have been on the campuses of Pepperdine, Abilene Christian, Rochester, and Lipscomb in Nashville. Last Monday through Wednesday I was invited to be a speaker at the Lipscomb Lectures at the Hazelip School of... Read more

From Jack Levison, on the need for contemplation: “Take a P this week,” I tell my students. (They humor me, laughing.) P = Plan. If you don’t plan to pray, meditate, contemplate, you probably won’t. Write it in your schedule, the way you would a committee meeting, a coffee date, an essay due. If you don’t plan it, you won’t get to the joy of contemplation. P = Place. Sometimes we don’t slip away to meditate because we have no... Read more

Source: An image parable of the church using our gifts. Read more

This is a sermon I preached last Sunday at Christ Church Plano. Go to the Table before You Go Home Luke 18:9-14 A few years back, at O’Hare airport in Chicago, I spotted a new vendor selling chocolate. The company was “Vosges.” The creator is one Katrina Markoff, and she learned her trade at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. The theme of her chocolates is “travel the world” – so she combines spices, flowers, roots, herbs and liquers with premium... Read more

On All Saints we remember the saints of all ages, all countries — in the past, in the present, and in the future — the communion of the saints: Almighty and merciful God, it is only by your gift that your faithful people offer you true and laudable service: Grant that we may run without stumbling to obtain your heavenly promises; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and... Read more

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Last Saturday and Sunday Kris and I were down in Plano, TX, just outside Dallas to teach at the beautiful Christ Church Plano and we sure did enjoy ourselves with the good folks there. The highlight for us, of course, was the Sunday worship where I got to deliver the Sunday homily (on the lectionary reading from Luke 18:9-14, the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector). The acoustics in Christ Church are out of this world and when you... Read more