Our church is currently studying the topic of spiritual disciplines. One of the spiritual disciplines we have studied is the act of worship. As a worship pastor, I admit that there seems to be a little bit of a dichotomy present within the combination of the words “discipline” and “worship”. Discipline implies obedience, yes. But it also implies deliberate training, concentrated control, and corrective punishment..

Sabbath comes from the Hebrew word Shavot which means to rest.   For me personally, it is a day that I don’t do laundry.  For my parents, it was a day that the whole family was expected to take an afternoon nap, even if we weren’t tired.  For my teenage son, it is a day that he doesn’t mow the yard… 

Some of you may be old enough to recall the immensely popular Bible study from the 90’s called “Experiencing God”. It was the first “real” Bible study I ever did and I have recently revisited it after nearly 30 years…

I have a confession: I’ve always been a bucket list kind of gal. I have had many dreams on that list: travel luxuriously in Paris and Switzerland, spend a month lounging in the Maldives, photograph wolves during a helicopter tour in Yellowstone, go for a snowy sleigh ride at Christmastime in Canada, surf Cloudbreak in Fiji, master the sport of ice dance, hunt for a trophy bull elk, snowboard in Breckenridge…

My favorite meal of the day is breakfast. As a new day dawns, I need energy from a good bowl of oatmeal flavored with honey and cocoa. I also like a good bowl of cereal to finish it off. Breakfast is not just the meal but also refers to the time of day when the darkness ends and the light of day returns. The word is a combination of “break” and “fast,” simply meaning the time when the overnight fast breaks.

I wrote a devotional earlier this year entitled “Knees That Bleed”, and since Pastor Ben taught a wonderful sermon on prayer this week, I thought I would make this devotional a follow-up to that, as the importance of prayer in my life has increased more and more since that time.

My mentor called me one evening, and as we spoke it was if she could feel the weight of my weariness through the phone. It had been a long day. I was worn out and feeling stressed about having to finish a lengthy Bible study assignment before my head could hit the pillow. Her voice firmly, yet gently, reminded me that I don’t need to feel obligated to finish my Bible Study homework…

Have you ever wondered about hymn writers? Who they were? Why they wrote? What their lives were like? This week, I learned about Annie Flint, a hymn-writer who also wrote poetry…

Radical obedience is the basis for understanding the name of God, Yahweh Yireh (which means “The LORD will provide.”   We can see how the Lord provides in Abraham's journey to Mount Moriah in Genesis 22 and our daily lives as we live out our faith through radical obedience… 

Pain often cannot be seen. We can feel it, our bodies display symptoms stemming from it, but pain will not be remedied until it is acknowledged.  Our invisible afflictions demand attention, relief, and resolution as we anxiously seek acknowledgement and help…

Have you ever heard the argument that if God is all-powerful, He must not be all good? The reasoning goes that if God were all-powerful, He would surely stop the horrors of this life…everything from natural disasters to famine, and from cancer to human trafficking…

A great story has the effect of drawing the reader deeper into the narrative with each page. The characters, the setting, and the plot can often transform a disengaged reader into one who identifies with the storyline because of personal experience.

Jacob Koury and I were not the closest of friends, but I inevitably got to know him well while living with him. I grew to care for him as a brother in Christ and friend…I moved out of the house we were living in together, and three weeks later when I had just set foot in my new studio apartment, I got a call from our other roommate, Chris. “Jacob was murdered…”

What comes to mind when you think of the word “work”?  A farmer riding a tractor, toiling in the fields to harvest food for the masses? Or possibly a 9-to-5 banker sitting on a rolling chair in an office cubicle staring at a computer screen?

Our choices in life may have kept us close to God or taken us far from Him. But no matter how our lives began or where our paths took us, if we are followers of Jesus, we share something in common….we have ALL been redeemed. And because of that, our stories all have the same ending.

I want my words to be life-giving. I want to use my words and tone of voice to bless people and love them well. Isn’t that what we all want? Shouldn't we want that?

At the close of this week’s sermon, the question was posed, “If those who knew you heard you were a Christian, would they believe it?”  I have heard it stated another, perhaps more direct, way…“If you were accused in court of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

For many years in church service, I have loved my times of reflection upon the Scripture passage that my pastor plans to teach us any given Sunday. I do this as an act of worship and of preparation for worship. I not only read the selected passage, but I also read a synopsis of the book from which the passage comes.