Incline my heart. – Pascal. Ever find yourself shouting out, I just need time to think! How do you and the communities of which you are a part respond? Looking for a resource with some clear, focused recommendations to assist you in taking another step on the journey? Over the past year I have enjoyed getting to know Mark Eckel[1] and keeping up with his challenging blog posts (warpandwoof.org). In the coming weeks Mark will share material with us on the ESN blog :) As an introduction, I am drawing from a book … [Read more...] about I Just Need Time to Think!
virtue
Book Review: Teaching and Christian Practices
With the new term opening, let's get serious with Bob Trube's review of Teaching and Christian Practices: Reshaping Faith and Learning (David I. Smith & James K.A. Smith, editors. Eerdmans, 2011) and a few bonus articles. Please feel free to comment on the project, book, bonus articles, even supply additional resource links to expand the conversation :) Note to all our readers: As I have done previously, I encourage you to read a book before you comment upon it :) It's my intention that reviews such as those … [Read more...] about Book Review: Teaching and Christian Practices
Christian Devotional Classics: The Imitation of Christ
All men commend patience, although few are willing to practice it. – Thomas ‘a Kempis Thomas à Kempis Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380 - 1471) lived in the midst of the crisis of the late medieval period. Although there had been relative stability and population growth in the High Middle Ages (1000-1299), the Late Middle Ages (1300-1500) began with the challenge of "The Great Famine" (1315-1317). The Great Famine led to crime, disease, and millions dead including children abandoned by parents and elderly letting … [Read more...] about Christian Devotional Classics: The Imitation of Christ
Cheap Justice, Cheap Grace
In watching people die, I have come to better appreciate how much meaning people attach to a body and how death has a way of revealing our most elemental beliefs about what remains. I have talked to patients in their final moments, have shoved long needles into pulseless vessels, have held the hands of weeping mothers and wives and sons, have electrified bodies on hallway floors, have carried severed limbs and have watched blood and vomit and blood fly through the air during final resuscitation attempts. I have stayed … [Read more...] about Cheap Justice, Cheap Grace
White Martyrdom and the Unpersecuted People of God
To be a confessing Christian is to be one who longs to act, think and be more like Jesus, and one who, along that journey of transformation, admits deep need for God's power, grace and body. Lent is a time to re-admit this need. In the early years of The Way of Jesus, persecution was the norm. One of the readings from this Sunday's lectionary comes from an epistle Paul wrote from prison (Philippians 3:4b-14). He was in prison for being a Christian. There have been, and still are, countless “red martyrs”--men and … [Read more...] about White Martyrdom and the Unpersecuted People of God