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“No” in Support of the Deeper “Yes”

From yesterday’s sermon:William Ury, bestselling author and cofounder of the Harvard Program on Negotiation, wrote about a relative of his who struggled with alcoholism. He had tried over and over again to quit drinking, but even a serious car accident that...

Dealing with it Together

I read about a teacher in Harlem who wanted his students to get out of the city and spend a little time in open-country. He arranged to take his class for a week of camp in the great outdoors. Once there, one of the first things he did was to organize a baseball game,...

It’s in the Details

This past Sunday, I tried to describe how our relationships with the people closest to us–our families, colleagues, neighbors, and fellow church-members–are crucially important; because, on the one hand, our love for them matters in itself. Our compassion...

Images of the Church’s Mission

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus offered two metaphors for the church on mission—two ways the church can manifest his presence: as “the salt of the earth” and as “a city set on a hill.” As “salt of the earth,” the church is on mission by way of involvement. Salt only...

Not Armageddon

Ernest Campbell, once the preaching minister at NYC’s Riverside Church, preached a wise sermon entitled “Every Battle is Not Armageddon.” It wasn’t a sermon about end-time prophecy or an apocalyptic war in the Middle East. Instead it was a...

A Preacher’s Responsibility (at least part of it)

Not long ago, my friend and teacher Buddy Shurden jogged my memory about something author Kurt Vonnegut once said about his “rules” for writing a short story. One of those rules was: “Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not...