Midnight Moments

I recently got an email from a woman at the church I started attending several months back inviting me to the Women’s Bible Study she hosts at her home on Monday nights. I unfortunately have a night class on Monday nights this semester, so I hit the reply button to tell her thank you, but I won’t be able to attend this semester. I addressed her by name, then continued to write the body of the letter then clicked the send button. As the box indicating my message had been “sent” popped up, I noticed her name was spelled “Bethaney” rather than the usual “Bethany”, which was how I had wrote it when I replied to her email. I shrugged it off assuming she probably was used to people misspelling her name. I then proceeded to laugh at the fact that I had seen the correct spelling when I opened the email, but still misspelled it when I emailed back! I was so used to seeing “”Bethany” spelled the “normal” way that my mind didn’t even notice the difference. It’s as though it autocorrected t...

I recently came across a book entitled, “The Christian Atheist: Believing in God, but Living as If He Doesn’t Exist”. While I didn’t read the book, the title intrigued me and got me thinking: how many of those who call themselves “Christians” live this way? We continue to live like the small child who believes he can’t be seen simply because he is covering his eyes and can’t see his parents. We can’t see God, so it won’t matter if I indulge in a secret sin here or there, as long as no one knows, or no one sees. We proclaim a faith in Christ, but live as those His sacrifice means nothing. In my Method & Praxis class one Monday night, we were discussing Kant’s impact on theology and the modern church. Kant taught a philosophical outlook on the world that consequently reduced religion (of the Christian persuasion) to moral living and God to a Santa Claus type figure. I think this is the brand of Christianity a large number of believers have adopted. We opt for the package deal n...

For this man who walked the earth... He was more than a prophet More than just a "good man" He was LOVE For this man who suffered and bled... He suffered more than just pain He suffered rejection, lonliness, and hatred He suffered for us "What greater love is there than this: that a man should lay down HIS LIFE for His friends..." For this KING who left His perfect throne For this MAKER who created you SPECIAL For this SAVIOR who TOOK YOUR PLACE "For the wages of sin is death... but the gift... is eternal life... through salvation..." For this forgiving, loving, righteous LORD... Will you not live your life for Him? He gave His for you... "So what now? Shall we go on sinning?" ABSOLUTELY NOT! His sacrifice is TOO GREAT for us to take it for granted... For this Christ... What will you choose to do?

Growing up in church I’ve always heard the phrase, “Come just as you are” thrown around but I’ve never really thought about what this means. As I was worshipping in service Sunday morning, the meaning hit me. God is holy, yes, so we should never enter His presence in a flippant manner, but with reverence and humility. However, God is also merciful and longs to meet us where we are, in our sinfulness, our brokenness, and even in our doubt. The power of coming into the presence of a holy, merciful God in the right spirit and bringing all our baggage is an encounter with this God who has the ability and desire to change us from who we were to who He wants us to be: a whole, joyful, righteous individual full of the life God intends for us and free from everything that keeps us in oppression and bondage. It in worship and in the presence of God Almighty that transformation is possible. During the MOVE conference as Asbury Theological Seminary this past week, this reality became more evident...

I’ve always been somewhat critical and only more recently a cynic, but seminary has made into a sermon critic monster. Not so much of the style or presentation of the speaker, but most definitely of the theology and exegetical ability. Proof texting is generally the biggest faux pax of ministers—using verses out of context to support a truth that may be biblical, but is better proved elsewhere in Scripture. Bad interpretation of Scripture is another common issue with many of the sermons I’ve heard in the past. One such misinterpretation I heard in a recent sermon was the following: “I don’t have to like everyone, but I do have to love everyone”. Is that really what the Bible teaches us? Is that what Christ exemplified in His earthly witness? Is that really how we interpret the verse that states, “They will know you by your love”; as some tolerant, impersonal, passive love without an emotional backing? I’m not convinced this is the case. According to 1 Corinthians 13 (the “love”...

A few years back, after committing to my call to seminary and ministry, I had a breakdown. A close friend was on a rocky spiritual path, straddling the fence between God and the world and about ready to fall off on the side of world. I had had countless conversations trying to convince her of the potential God had for her life and everything she would be throwing away by walking away from God's call on her life. She was not the only one of my friends I had had these sorts of conversations with, and time has convinced me she won't be the last. I remember breaking down in my dad's office at church and telling him, "I'm so tired. I'm not making any difference in her life and I'm sick and tired of beating her over the head with the truth when she doesn't care." He somberly looked at me and with pain in his voice told me, "Welcome to ministry." Have you been there? You're exercising everything in your power-- prayer, lectures, pleading, bi...

"We cannot understand the meaning of Grace without understanding the concept of God." This was the opening comment to my Method and Praxis class. It hit me like lightning and struck quite a personal note as well. This is at the root of our dysfunctional relationship with God. We don't truly take the time to know His character and nature, so therefore we cannot understand or see how He is working in our lives and in our world. All our unbelief and misunderstanding of who God is and how He relates to us and how we are to relate to Him stem from a warped perception of God. This may be because of upbringing; perhaps we had a poor relationship with our parents or a traumatic experience that produced a sense of God as an unfair, unloving, impersonal deity with no concern for our well-being. Perhaps we grew up in an ultraconservative household or religious community that caused us to view God as a vengeful judge waiting to strike us down if we do something wrong or make a mistak...

The Bible is not kid friendly. For the most part, many of the stories in the Bible, are too scary or complicated. The result is often a view of God as an angry Being who will kill you if you disobey Him. Either that, or you end up just confusing the child. Somehow I think this may be the case for older hearers of the Biblical stories as well. Like all pieces of literature, the Bible has an audience, cultural-historical context, and authorship that must be studied and understood in order to more fully grasp the full range of meaning of any particular text, and even more so to understand the text as a whole. Thus went my thought process as I lay awake late one night, physically exhausted, but unable to make my mind shut off. From there I began trying to formulate an explanation of the sin-salvation story as I would tell it to a small child or even a new believer of any age. It was in the midst of this that I had my epiphany. As I was mentally unwrapping the story of Creation and ...