“Why did Christ command us to call God ‘Father’?” That’s question 120 of the Heidelberg Catechism, the first in a series of ten on the phrases of the Lord’s Prayer. They asked the question 450 years ago, but it is still a good one — and timely now for reasons the authors never would have […]
Exploring Models Of Christian Community
When Benedict of Nursia (c. 480-c. 550) set out to form a new Christian community — a monastery — he did it all wrong. If he’d been a member of my denomination we would have set him straight. He should, of course, have started with a “mission study.” We want our communities — typically local […]
Survey Says…
Quick quiz — or maybe it’s a riddle: What makes you patient when things go against you? thankful when things go well? and confident as you face all the unknowns of the future? Or maybe I should switch it around and make it a survey — something they could have used on the old game […]
Simon Says: “What Do You Need?”
Last week I was blogging about the guidelines for prayer offered by the Heidelberg Catechism and I whizzed right by one that some may find troubling. When we pray, says the Catechism, we are supposed to ask “for everything God has commanded us to ask for.” It sounds like we are playing the spiritual version […]
Putting The Pieces Together About Prayer
Some Christians can make prayer seem like bit of a puzzle. Not that they portray prayer as confusing — far from it. They make it more like a jigsaw puzzle: once you get each piece in the right place (and they only fit one way) the picture emerges automatically. In the puzzle theory of prayer […]
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