How do you deal with waiting? Are there things that you find especially hard to wait for? My car wouldn't start. I'm sitting in the grocery store parking lot, wanting to get home with the groceries I had just purchased, but when I turn the key, all I got was a clicking sound. So I called a car service, and they said they'd send somebody. The only problem – it would be an hour before they arrived. An hour?!? I had to sit in my car and wait for them to arrive. An hour hour never felt so long. Waiting – we … [Read more...] about Advent: Watching and Waiting
living the christian year
Why Bother with Advent?
Part of a series of occasional reflections over the weeks of Advent initially created with the hope of encouraging the reader to embrace keeping the season of Advent. Advent resources have continued to grow on the Emerging Scholars Network blog over the course of the past several years. Charlie Clauss' tireless labors through the Keeping Advent Facebook Group have been a blessing to many individuals and families seeking after the Lord during this busy time of year. ~ Tom Grosh IV, Associate Director, Emerging Scholars … [Read more...] about Why Bother with Advent?
Lenten Preparations: A Time of Contrition
As you prepare for Lent, meditate upon (and share with a friend) these words from C.S. Lewis' Miserable Offenders: An Interpretation of Prayer Book Language: The Lenten season is devoted especially to what the theologians call contrition, and so every day in Lent a prayer is said in which we ask God to give us "contrite hearts."1 Contrite, as you know, is a word translated from Latin, meaning crushed or pulverized. Now modern people complain that there is too much of that note in our Prayer Book. They do not … [Read more...] about Lenten Preparations: A Time of Contrition
Week in Review: What’s your story? How do you tell it?
What are you reading, watching, thinking about this week? As usual, here's a few which have been on our mind. Let us know your thoughts on any/all of them. If you have items you'd like us to consider for the top five, add them in the comments or send them to Tom or Mike. 1. Inhabiting God's story? Over the past several days Tom hosted Bobby Gross, National Director of InterVarsity's Graduate & Faculty Ministry. They had a number of conversations with faculty, pastors, and friends of InterVarsity Christian … [Read more...] about Week in Review: What’s your story? How do you tell it?
Before the Presence of God
No Week-in-Review this week. May this quotation from Living the Christian Year help put your Christmas in proper perspective. So in this season we come once more to Bethlehem in the poverty of the shepherds and humility of the Magi. We bow before the feedbox which holds the Bread of Life, the gift by which we're enriched. We find our words, even our poetry, failing us, as Dietrich Bonheoffer so eloquently discerned: "Our words rush out at the sight of the divine child; we try to put into language what is implied … [Read more...] about Before the Presence of God