Report from Down Under

It is hard to believe that the first week of our trip Down Under is over.  Much to my discouragement the weather here in Sydney has been cold and wet – not much fun for Black Stump where most of the speaking was in tents.  I came back to my mother’s with very muddy shoes [...]

The Causes of Our Times

I am getting ready to speak at the West Coast Healthcare Missions Conference this next week and have been updating some of my statistics and presentations.  As usual this kind of preparation challenges me again to look at the needs of our world and to grapple with how my life can make a difference in [...]

Planting Seeds of the Kingdom

We are now into the season of the church calendar called ordinary time or more descriptively Kingdomtime.  This is the season for planting and growing seeds of kingdom life.  In the Revised Common lectionary the gospel reading for Sunday’s sermon yesterday was mark 4:26 – 34 in which the parable of the growing seed is [...]

More Reflections for Lent

Here are a few more reflections on week 3 of Lent
From Kathy Escobar on homelessness – not just physical but spiritual and emotional. Read here
Ryan decided to go in a different direction than this Lenten guide but I still thought that you would enjoy his reflections in this post Too Entertained
As we draw towards Easter [...]

Coffeehouse Theology

I have just been reading Ed Cyzewski’s book Coffehouse Theology, and thoroughly enjoying it, maybe because so many of his ideas are ones that I could easily have written about myself.  Ed shares lots of great stories that help us to think about how to connect our theology to everyday life experiences and raise some [...]

A Good Break

What a weekend. Friday evening Andy & Helen Harrington, good friends from Canada (though originally from England) came through on their way to California. It is always wonderful to have time to catch up with friends and Andy and Helen are special people. Andy Harrington heads up Youth For Christ in Vancouver [...]

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 [...]

But I Tell You

I have just been sent a delightful book by Barclay Press called But I Tell You: Jesus Introduces A Better Way to Live, by Karen Oberst.  It gives some fresh insights into the Sermon on the Mount which have come directly from the original Greek.  I particularly enjoyed the quotes like this one by Corrie [...]

Books, Plants and Friends

I just realized looking back through this blog that it is a long time since I mentioned any of the books I have been reading, which is rather surprising since I read 4 – 5 books a week. Maybe the problem is that I have been dipping into a number of rather of uninspiring [...]

Tomato theology?

Yesterday we planted 30 tomato plants in the garden – another important rite of spring and and an increasingly important part of the rhythm of my life.  You have no idea how much better tomatoes taste straight out of the garden.  In fact I am amazed at how much better all vegetables taste when freshly [...]