Dear Partner in Preaching, Have you ever noticed how difficult it is to imagine a future all that different from the past? We somehow get stuck in patterns of behavior and eventually come to believe that our past performance isn’t simply a predictor of our future behavior but rather its guarantee. And so the older we grow the less open the future seems and more ominous the past looms in our lives. The key to all of this, recent psychological research tells us, is story. Because the past isn’t simply the past, it’s the interpreted past. The past, in short, is the story we’ve told ourselves about the past. Which is why two siblings can...
The Kingdom
posted by DJL
Palm Sunday is tomorrow. I know we now call it Passion Sunday, or The Sunday of the Passion, or Palm/Passion Sunday. (No doubt there are other variants as well.) And I understand the reasons for the change. When attendance at Holy Week services dropped off, the folks who guard our worship...
Holy Week in 2 Minut...
posted by DJL
Ever wonder why there are so many special services during Holy Week? Or why we wave palms on Palm Sunday? Or the significance of the foot washing on Maundy Thursday? Well, the folks at Busted Halo have put together another great video to help explain all these things and more…and all in...
Mark 11:1-6
posted by DJL
When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If...
Palm/Passion Sunday
posted by DJL
Dear Lord, Keep us with you as you enter the gates greeted by cheers. Keep us with you as you teach and talk and debate and overturn. Keep us with you as you sup and pray. Keep us with you as you give yourself and hurry the others away. Keep us with you as you stand accused with none to defend...