Anticipating Advent

I was wandering through SAMS this morning feeling totally overwhelmed and a little nauseated by all the Christmas junk that is already out - even Christmas carols playing throughout the store. So I thought that I would fight back with a little reflection on Advent. I know that many of you are looking [...]

What Shoots Adrenaline Into Your Souls?

This me church video which we linked to in the last MSA Seed Sampler has been a real hit. The sad thing to me is that this is really how many people view church. We may not say it out loud but on main purpose in going to church can become “to get [...]

Madonna of the Magnificat

On Sunday Carla Pryne was away and Rev Ralph Carskadden preached a very powerful and compelling sermon about the upside down values of God’s kingdom.  Here is a portion of that sermon I thought you might find interesting.
When gazing at the splendid Madonna of the Magnificat by Botticelli, contemporaries of the artist would have seen [...]

Geography of Grace

I was just given the information on a new website that has profoundly impacted me. It is called called Geography Of Grace It is a resource for grassroots urban leaders doing “theology from below.”
Center for Transforming Mission and Mile High Ministry in Denver have teamed up to create this new resource. [...]

The Many Faces of Jesus

You can probably tell from my reflections over the last few weeks that I am spending a lot of time meditating on the many faces of Jesus in different cultures, in different ages and in this post in different situations.
I have always been fascinated by how Christians perceive Jesus. It is interesting to me [...]

Jesus - A Man for all Nations

Here is a meditation video I put together for the MSA Seed Sampler on Indigenous Peoples and Christianity. I think that it is easy for us who are Westerners to think that Jesus was a white male who would fit comfortably into our culture. But it isn’t true. In fact I suspect [...]

Theological Diversity in a Globalized World.

Yesterday I read Barbara Kingsolver’s essay A Fist in the Eye of God, in which she talks about the incredible diversity present in nature. The longer a crop has been grown in a country the greater the diversity of seed types that can be found. So a huge number of wheat strains exist [...]

The Healing Hand of Jesus

I just came across this beautiful picture of Jesus healing the lunatic boy on Matt Stone’s blog while I was hunting for paintings of Jesus from different cultures He has lots of other views of Jesus from African, Native American, Aboriginal and other cultures that I think you might enjoy as well.

Does God Cause Evil?

Over the last couple of days we have been devastated yet again by the horrors of violence as we heard about the shooting at Virginia Tech University. The rhythm of violent death is one that cuts across all our lives like a bolt of lightning. The shockwaves reverberate through our society raising important [...]

Imaging Jesus

What is the image that comes to your mind when you think of the face of Jesus? I love to explore images of Jesus from different cultures. I find that looking at Jesus from a Chinese, African or Latin American perspective often reveals new aspects of who Jesus is to me.
Some of my [...]