Sunday, June 11. 2006
 Exodus 3, 1-15
Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. 3Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up.” 4When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5Then he said, “Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6He said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 7Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, 8and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. 10So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.” 11But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” 12He said, “I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain.” 13But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’“ 15God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations. Image: An part of a triptych (a good spelling bee word) by Nicholas Froment entitled The Burning Bush (1475). Consistent with the "cult of the Virgin," the Virgin and Christ child appear to Moses in his vision, rather than the voice of God, which I think is a bit odd. It is better seen in the larger image, with the child holding a mirror in which he and his mother are reflected: this cool picture has symbols coming out of its ears.
Sunday, June 4. 2006
 From Alan Jacob's The Narnian:
Transformation is not optional but mandatory for Christians. This was Lewis' consistent position. After all, he had undergone his own transformation, discovering "depth under depth of self-love and self-admiration" and submitting to the life-long discipline of being purged of such sin. We must die in order to live, hate our lives in order to find them, give up what we think of as ourselves in order to gain our true selves. And this is the most difficult of tasks.
Sunday, May 28. 2006
1 John 5: 9-13 9If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. 10Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. 11And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life.
Sunday, May 21. 2006
 Psalm 33
1Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous. Praise befits the upright.
2Praise the Lord with the lyre; make melody to him with the harp of ten strings.
3Sing to him a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.
4For the word of the Lord is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness.
5He loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of the steadfast love of the Lord.
6By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
7He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle; he put the deeps in storehouses.
8Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him.
9For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.
10The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
11The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.
12Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage.
13The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all humankind.
14From where he sits enthroned he watches all the inhabitants of the earth—
15he who fashions the hearts of them all, and observes all their deeds.
16A king is not saved by his great army; a warrior is not delivered by his great strength.
17The war horse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save.
18Truly the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love,
19to deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.
20Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and shield.
21Our heart is glad in him, because we trust in his holy name.
22Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.
Thursday, May 4. 2006
"In the beginning was the Word..." Our favorite blogging metaphysician, Gagdad Bob, takes on gnosis and logos. You have to give his stuff a little time - he should not post more than once or twice a week: you cannot rush a search for Ultimate Truth. Like all really smart guys, Bob has his eccentricities: he can switch from the cosmic to hearty conservative politics so fast you can get whiplash. I do not think you can sue someone for mental whiplash...or can you? It is time to blogroll him. But gnosis is neither naturalistic or idealistic. Rather, it is logoistic. That is, the truth of things is found neither in the external world nor in the mind that contemplates it. The esoterist worships neither gaia nor the intellect. Rather, he worships the eternal Word that is the source of each. As expressed by an anonymous Christian friend, reality is founded upon the Word, or Logos, “whose objective manifestation is the world of prototypes underlying the phenomenal world, and whose subjective manifestation is the light or prototype of human intelligence”: “all things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.”
So therefore, the only truly true and objective knowledge is knowledge of the Word. Objects are only real in the sense that they inhere in the Word--otherwise we could not know them. And our intellectual conceptions--our gnosis--are only true insofar as they reflect the Word. Real truth is not a construct or acquisition of the ego, but something to which we humbly submit.
His whole piece is here.
Wednesday, May 3. 2006
"Everything comes from 
love, all is ordained for
the salvation of man, God does nothing without this goal in mind." St. Catherine St. Catherine's birthday was last week, April 29. A quote from David Warren's piece: Today is the 626th anniversary of the death of St Catherine of Siena, at age 33. (It is also my birthday, so I’ll write what I want to.) This Catherine is a figure not only in hagiography, but also in world history. She changed its course by persuading a weak pope to return from Avignon to Rome, in defiance of a French king and the entire papal curia, to face greater dangers. She was the decisive influence in stopping a civil war, forging unexpected and fruitful alliances between Italian city states. By such means, she helped restore a papacy that had all but disintegrated, and put it back on what the Marxists call, “the right side of history”. It was a moment, in the 14th century, when Europe might have ceased to be Catholic. There have been several such moments; and in remembering them, we might even find hope today -- supposing we ourselves are on the right side of history. She was no mere Helen of Troy, inspiring events limply. Catherine of Siena forged them by her own command. Or rather, as she insisted, by the command of God, through the vehicle of her own strange, otherworldly person. As a small child, she began having visions, and consecrated her virginity to Christ. She died so young, probably from the cumulative effects of her austerities and mortifications.
Image is Pompeo Batoni's 1787 The Ecstasy of St. Catherine
Sunday, April 30. 2006
Acts 4: 5-12 5 The next day their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, 6with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. 7When they had made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, ‘By what power or by what name did you do this?’ 8Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, ‘Rulers of the people and elders, 9if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, 10let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. 11This Jesus is “the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.” 12There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.’ Image: One of my House Wren houses
Sunday, April 16. 2006
As an Easter story, I love this, from the CSM, about women criminals finding re-birth: Where women find new lives.
From a powerful homily entitled Friendship with Christ by Cardinal Ratzinger, shortly before becoming Pope Benedict last April: The mercy of Christ is not a cheap grace; it does not presume a trivialization of evil. Christ carries in his body and on his soul all the weight of evil, and all its destructive force. He burns and transforms evil through suffering, in the fire of his suffering love. The day of vindication and the year of favor meet in the paschal mystery, in Christ died and risen. This is the vindication of God: he himself, in the person of the Son, suffers for us. The more we are touched by the mercy of the Lord, the more we draw closer in solidarity with his suffering - and become willing to bear in our flesh "what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ" (Col 1, 24).
Saturday, April 15. 2006
 This is by Charles Spurgeon, and was recently quoted by a commenter at One Cosmos:
God be thanked for the simplicity of the gospel. The longer I live, the more I bless God that we have not received a classical gospel, nor a mathematical gospel, nor a metaphysical gospel; it is not a gospel confined to scholars and men of genius, but a poor man s gospel, a ploughman's gospel; for that is the kind of gospel which we can live upon and die upon. It is to us not the luxury of refinement, but the staple food of life. We want no fine words when the heart is heavy, neither do we need deep problems when we are lying upon the verge of eternity, weak in body and tempted in mind. At such times we magnify the blessed simplicity of the gospel. Jesus in the flesh made manifest becomes our soul's bread. Jesus bleeding on the cross, a substitute for sinners, is our soul's drink. This is the gospel for babes, and strong men want no more.
Image: C. H. Spurgeon, English Baptist preacher (1834-1892)
Wednesday, April 12. 2006
The meaning of Passover. Extracted from a lovely and profound piece by Bruce Kesler: Standing before Pharaoh, Moses did not merely demand, in the name of G-d, that he "Let My people go," but "Let My people go, that they may serve Me." What is the significance of this liberating "service"? It means that man, no matter how free of external constraints, is a finite creature, ever subject to the limits of his own nature and character. That to attain true freedom he must therefore transcend his humanity - his emotional, intellectual, even spiritual self - and access the "spark of G-dliness" that is his infinite, supra-human self…. For freedom is more than the drive to escape foreign and negative inhibitors: no matter how free of them we are, we remain defined by the boundaries of self and self-definition. Freedom is the incessant drive to "Passover" these boundaries, to draw on our divine, infinite potential to constantly overreach what we are.
Monday, April 10. 2006
 We will try to do a Holy Week post daily. I remembered yesterday why Christ rode a donkey into Jerusalem for Passover. A horse meant war - a donkey meant humility. A quote from David Warren's Palm Sunday post:
...Which is not to present Christ as the gliberals paint him today -- as some kind of fatuous pacifist preaching tolerance and multiculturalism. He was the one who said, in the Gospel of Matthew, “I bring not peace but a sword,” and that he would “set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother.” In Luke: “Do you think I come to bring peace on earth? I tell you, no.” Upon entering Jerusalem through St Stephen’s Gate, he turned left and into the Temple -- to do what? He pushed over the tables of the money changers, made a whip to scourge the sellers of sacrificial cattle and sheep, told the dove-sellers to (euphemism) “get out of here”. This is the Christ that Western man has deleted from his collective memory. The Christ who was not, incidentally, making some effete protest against the commercialization of religion. Rather, the one who, as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, and Amos before him, was denouncing the cult of animal sacrifice -- the reduction of religion to cheap acts of propitiation; the violence done to God. And the remark he makes about the “den of robbers” is quoted from Jeremiah, who had stood at the same spot, making the same point, six centuries before.
Friday, April 7. 2006
Bird of Paradise says: "Been there, done that." Just another Gnostic Gospel. I agree, Reverend. But this old stuff is interesting.
Thursday, April 6. 2006
National Geographic will air their documentary on this papyrus on April 9. The below from Bloomberg:Gospel of Judas' Authenticated, Translated After 1,700 Years
2006-04-06 15:16 (New York) By Samantha Zee
April 6 (Bloomberg) -- An ancient manuscript known as the`Gospel of Judas,'' which was lost for almost 1,700 years, has been authenticated and translated, providing a new view of the relationship between Jesus and the apostle who betrayed him.
The leather-bound papyrus manuscript, believed to have been copied down in Coptic probably around A.D. 300, was found in the 1970s in the desert near El Minya, Egypt. The 66-page manuscript also contains a text titled James, a Letter of Peter to Philip, and a fragment of a fourth text scholars are calling the Book of Allogenes, according to the National Geographic Society.
Unlike accounts in the New Testament Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, in which Judas is reviled for his traitorous act, this gospel portrays Judas as acting at Jesus's request when he hands Jesus over to authorities. The 26-page Gospel of Judas was written on 13 sheets of papyrus, both back and front.
The discovery of the ancient, non-biblical text, "considered by some to be the most significant of the past 60 years, enhances our knowledge of the history and theological viewpoints of the early Christian period,'' said Terry Garcia, executive vice president for Mission Programs for the National Geographic Society in a statement on its Web site.
The Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art and the Waitt Institute for Historical Discovery were also part of the international effort to authenticate, conserve and translate it.
The manuscript circulated among antiquities traders, moving from Egypt to Europe to the U.S. It was held in a safe-deposit
box in Long Island, New York, for 16 years before being bought in 2000 by Zurich-based antiquities dealer Frieda Nussberger-Tchacos.
When attempts to resell the manuscript fell through, Tchacos, alarmed by the manuscript's rapidly deteriorating state, transferred it to the Maecenas Foundation for Ancient Art in Basel, Switzerland, in February 2001 for conservation and translation.
It was authenticated as a genuine work of ancient Christian literature through radiocarbon dating, ink and handwriting analysis and imagining techniques, Garcia said. The manuscript, now known as Codex Tchacos, will be delivered to Egypt and housed in Cairo's Coptic Museum.
In the text, Jesus challenges his disciples to look at him and understand what he really is, though they turn away. In a key passage, he tells Judas that "you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.''
Pages of the papyrus manuscript, or codex, are on public display at the National Geographic headquarters in Washington.
Sunday, April 2. 2006
A brand new Congregational Church in CT, consecrated last night. and celebrating the congregation's first Sunday worship in the new home today. A joyful day. And for once, everyone fit. It looks 200 years old, but built 2005-2006. Steel beams, and no pillars supporting the balcony. A church is just a building, but a congregation needs a home in which to worship, learn, and to pray together. Despite the fine building, the church is people - not steel and wood. This one is as plain as plain can be, but the spirit within is not plain. Interesting facts: The original church of this congregation burned down in 1920. They have been holing up in a tiny, abandoned, rickety but beloved Methodist meeting house since then, from which a generation has worshipped, been married, and been buried. This congregation of about 300 broke off from the politically-activist UCC last year, by unanimous vote, showing that the Yankee independent spirit continues. Evangelical? Yes, a bit. Part of the Congregational movement was/remains that each congregation determines its own path by prayerfully seeking the will of God - each as one small component of the body of Christ. 
 Psalm 51 (A penitential Psalm of David)
1Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
2Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
3For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
4Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.
5Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.
6You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.
7Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have crushed rejoice.
9Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.
10Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me.
11Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your holy spirit from me.
12Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit.
13Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.
14Deliver me from bloodshed, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your deliverance.
15O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
16For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
17The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
18Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; rebuild the walls of Jerusalem,
19then you will delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar. Image: Rembrandt's picture of rock star David singing and playing the lyre for King Saul.
Sunday, March 19. 2006
Psalm 19 The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
2Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.
3There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard;
4yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In the heavens he has set a tent for the sun,
5which comes out like a bridegroom from his wedding canopy, and like a strong man runs its course with joy.
6Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them; and nothing is hid from its heat.
7The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple;
8the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes;
9the fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.
10More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb.
11Moreover by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.
12But who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults.
13Keep back your servant also from the insolent; do not let them have dominion over me. Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression.
14Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
Sunday, March 12. 2006
Mark 9:2-102Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, 3and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. 4And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. 5Then Peter said to Jesus, “Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” 6He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. 7Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” 8Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them any more, but only Jesus. 9As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead. 10So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what this rising from the dead could mean.
Sunday, March 5. 2006
 Rev. Brian at Real Meal has a good summary of the historiography of the Old Testament. A nice intro to a topic about which I know nothing.
Edward Oakes SJ takes on Gary Will's strange theological journey at First Things. Rev. Tod on Repentance, at It Takes a Church: Repentance is literally to “change your mind.” In the famous words of Dallas Willard, “To reconsider your strategy for living based on the news of God’s Kingdom that is available in Jesus.” And that is what Lent is for, to reconsider your strategy for living. To begin a new process of deep consideration and reflection about your life. To reconsider what it means to follow Jesus, to plumb the mystery of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. To reconsider what your strategy for living should be, based on this good news.
Image: Botticelli's Mystic Crucifixion, with a nice view of the 14th C. walls of Florence.
From Psalm 25 1To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
2O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me.
3Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous.
4Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.
5Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.
6Be mindful of your mercy, O Lord, and of your steadfast love, for they have been from of old.
7Do not remember the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness’ sake, O Lord!
8Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in the way.
9He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way.
Sunday, February 19. 2006
 How often do you see a new Congregational Church going up?
Tuesday, February 14. 2006
The Gospels have become so overladen with myth over the past two thousand years that some Christians - me, for example - are not always certain whether an event was added myth, or actually written in the Gospels. And, of course, the Gospels are not exactly gospel themselves, being oral reports written down years later. I hope I am not the only Christian who thinks that the question of whether Jesus had a special relationship with Magdalene is 1) dumb, since there is no data, 2) uninteresting, 3) a distraction, and 4) irrelevant. What is highly relevant to me is the following scene from John's Gospel, as described by Jean Acocella, who considers the role of Mary Magdalene in her piece "The Saintly Sinner" in The New Yorker: Magdalene goes to the tomb in darkness, before dawn, and she goes alone. We feel her hurry, her sense of danger. To her astonishment, she finds the stone rolled away. She runs back to the disciples and tells them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre, and we know not where they have laid him.” Peter and another disciple take over. They rush to the tomb; indeed, they race to see who can get there first. (This exemplary male competition became a favorite scene in medieval morality plays. In John’s Gospel, it adds a bright little note of comedy to the otherwise dark tale.) When they arrive, they see that the Magdalene was right: the body is gone. They go back home, presumably baffled, but the Magdalene stays behind, weeping. She looks again into the tomb, and now she sees two angels dressed in white. They ask her why she is crying, and she repeats her simple complaint: “They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.” Even with angels, she’s still looking for the body. But then she turns around and sees another figure, who says to her, “Why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou?” The tomb is in a garden, and the Magdalene thinks this man must be the gardener. A third time—it’s like a song—she repeats her complaint: “Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him.” Now comes the stab through the heart. “Mary,” the “gardener” says to her, and instantly she knows. “Rabboni” (roughly, “My dear rabbi”), she replies, and apparently she reaches out to him, because he says, “Touch me not.” (This is the Latin Bible’s famous phrase “Noli me tangere.”) “But,” he tells her, “go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father.” He then vanishes, and she is left by herself.
Read the whole piece, which powerfully asserts Magdalene's authority on "matters of the soul."
Sunday, February 12. 2006
1Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
2Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
3While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.
4For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah
5Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. Selah
6Therefore let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them.
7You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with glad cries of deliverance. Selah
8I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
9Do not be like a horse or a mule, without understanding, whose temper must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not stay near you.
10Many are the torments of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds those who trust in the Lord.
11Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart.
Saturday, February 11. 2006
I dare you to try reading this semi-scholarly piece about Liberal Christian Theology in Crosscurrents. I got lost so fast that it wasn't funny. I think their point is that a politically progressive Christian theology is a good, modern thing, but, if so, it is way beyond my poor powers of comprehension.
Thursday, February 9. 2006
 The CSM has been doing a fine series on the New Churches. This is one I think I'd like to go to. Quote:
Clearly, there are varieties of megachurches. Yet visits to this one in Milford, Conn., suggest deeper explanations for their appeal. One of the oldest towns in America, Milford boasts Cape Cod houses on shady streets, a beachfront on Long Island Sound, and miles of strip malls along US Route 1. It's becoming a bedroom community for New York City. Started with the aims of reaching the unchurched and creating a faith community that "demonstrates the kingdom of God on earth," Kingdom Life Christian Church (KLCC) has had a visible impact on members, on Milford, and beyond. Bible-focused, with dynamic leadership, highly structured youth programs, and adult home fellowship, the church is drawing people from communities all along I-95. At a Wednesday night Bible study in the hotel ballroom-style sanctuary, a friendly, buoyant group of about 600 is surprisingly diverse: white, Latino, and black; children and parents, all with Bibles in hand. (Teenagers have their class in another building.)
And I love this quote from Pastor Ramirez: "God's going to knock us out of our comfort zones," he cautions the gathered faithful. "God is at work in the world ... and is building a spiritual city, a spiritual Jerusalem.... Every stage is going to be uncomfortable ... until we are in the divine order."
Read the whole piece. Wonderful. Image from the CSM article. (And yes, if you want to, you may mock and satirize this without fear of beheading!)
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