Relationships: Tools, Idols, and Foes or Family, Body, and Kingdom

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:22 pm By Morgan Guyton

This week’s sermon concluded our post-Christmas sermon series “Spiritual Not Religious” in which we were exploring some basic human longings that all people share whether they follow Jesus or not. This last week I preached about our innate human longing for relationships. I think this is the strongest longing we have. We make a lot of choices in life out of the need for authentic companionship. The question is whether our relationships are dysfunctional or healthy. In the first half... Read more

Eternal life: being fully present to God

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:22 pm By Morgan Guyton

There’s a concept that we talk about in ministry and relationships: being fully present. I think of the smart-phone commercial where a guy and a girl are on a date, and the guy is watching a basketball game on the sly, but can’t keep himself from bursting into cheers while the girl is trying to have a “fully present” conversation. It hit me this morning in a moment in which I was not fully present to my wife how rarely... Read more

Illegal immigrant hunting permit

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:22 pm By Morgan Guyton

Words are inadequate to respond to this image that has been circulating the internet. I’ll only say that we are all illegal aliens in the kingdom of God granted amnesty by the blood of Jesus Christ. Every time we refuse others mercy, we are rejecting our own. God is using things like this to separate the wheat from the chaff and make plain the fruit of Satan. The pigs continue to race off the cliff into the lake of fire;... Read more

Do you read the Bible for ideology or discipleship?

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:22 pm By Morgan Guyton

When I was in seminary, one of the things that impressed me about Augustine was the way that his language was haunted by the words of the psalms, in particular my favorite one, Psalm 42. Books 11-13 of his Confessions break into one of the most beautiful hermeneutical dances I have ever encountered. I wrote a term paper on his stream-of-conscious, allegorical interpretation of Genesis 1 in which the “dry land” which is eternal life has at its center the... Read more

Jesus inside the beltway: Glocalization and relationship-rooted causes

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:22 pm By Morgan Guyton

On the last day of our GBCS young clergy leadership forum, we learned the term “glocalization.” It’s actually not an affirmation of the activist world cliche that we should “think globally and act locally.” The problem is precisely that we too often think about activism in global terms instead of local ones. Activism that is understood in kingdom terms should always seek as localized a form as possible even if it occurs over a distance that is global. Let me... Read more

Is Jesus saving the world from us?

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:22 pm By Morgan Guyton

Is Jesus saving the world from us? It’s a different way to talk about salvation, but honestly it’s the gospel that I’m hoping to be true as an evangelical afflicted by what Rachel Held Evans calls “the scandal of the evangelical heart.” When did we become the Pharisees Jesus came to Earth to stop us from being? How many of us have been secretly asking that question in our minds? How many of us need to be saved from a... Read more

Moses’ veil or mirrors of glory? 2 Corinthians 3:12-18

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:22 pm By Morgan Guyton

I had a very uncanny experience today with the Daily Office. In a blog post this morning, I wrote, “My role is less to bring truth down to them from Mt. Sinai and more to name the truth that the Spirit is already breathing in their midst.” Well, what did God put into the Daily Office Old Testament reading today but Exodus 34:29-35 when Moses comes down from Mt. Sinai and has to put a veil over his face because... Read more

Jesus inside the beltway: love creates the space for truth

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:22 pm By Morgan Guyton

Yesterday, the young clergy leadership forum heard from Bill Mefford, the GBCS point person for immigration reform and other controversial causes. Bill shared with us that he actually spent most of his career as a local pastor to people in the rural midwest and Texas who would disagree with most of the things he’s advocating now. He said the most solid foundation for being able to speak prophetic Biblical truths in your congregation is for people to know that you... Read more

Jesus inside the beltway: Two no-brainer gun policies

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:22 pm By Morgan Guyton

Continuing to blog through what I’m learning at the General Board of Church and Society Young Clergy Leadership Forum. We’re listening to a presentation about gun violence from a group called Heeding God’s Call that is blowing my mind. A common argument in debates over guns is that gun crimes are committed with guns that are purchased illegally. Two kids in my former youth group are in jail now because of crimes involving black market guns. So how do black... Read more

Jesus inside the beltway: “Why are you here?”

Last updated on: July 17, 2014 at 2:23 pm By Morgan Guyton

I am attending the young clergy leadership forum (#yclf on twitter) with the General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) in Washington, DC. This is the agency that lobbies the federal government on behalf of the United Methodist Church according to the agenda set forth every four years by our General Conference. I decided I would blog about my experience in a series called “Jesus inside the beltway.” The first question it seems important to ask is why they exist.... Read more