If your ego is getting too big, go stand in Muir Woods National Monument with the world’s oldest and tallest redwood trees. When you stand in Muir Woods you feel small.
Really small.
United Methodist friends, as you begin your day, here’s an invitation to pray for our church, especially the delegates and our Episcopal leaders at General Conference.
Confession: I doodle while other people are talking. Don’t deny it, you have done it, too. Several years ago, someone told me we learn more when our hands are busy creating something. It’s given me permission to doodle and to create while other people are talking. Honestly, I do listen better when I am creating something.
This week, when I found myself in a convention center ballroom with no table in front of me, I took up another task: creating images on my phone.
Leonard Sweet says that the Wesleyan Revival was born on its knees, rooted in fasting and prayer. For Wesley, prayer was the most powerful force in the universe.
Listen to what others have said about the Wesleyan movement.
A Jewish couple was arguing over the name to give their firstborn. They finally asked the rabbi to come and intercede.
“What’s the problem?” The rabbi asked.
The wife spoke first. “My husband wants to name the boy after his father, and I want to name the boy after my father.”
“What is your father’s name?” the rabbi asked the man.
“Joseph,” was his reply.
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Every time church gathers there is an offer of hospitality. A diversity of people worships together, learns and grows together, and becomes family together. In fact, hospitality is a lifestyle. As a congregation, we have the opportunity to offer a home and family to people who, at that moment and for all practical purposes, are looking for a place to belong. Every gracious host or hostess makes the offer “Make yourself at home.”
Our world and our culture are both going through massive changes. These changes are increasing in both speed and complexity. They are shaping our values in regard to how we define family, faith, knowledge, and science. These changes are all too ready to leave the church behind as some quaint spiritual artifact. In such an arena of competing values and counter-Christian views, what options do we have as individual believers or as churches in our communities?