Category Archives: Parable, Metaphor and Illustration

Another Look: I Am a Pastor

I wrote this many years ago, while on a mission trip in India. I used it to teach children about what a pastor is and does. Over the years, I’ve come back to it many times. Its simple words remind me of and refresh me in God’s calling. Perhaps, today, it can be of encouragementContinue reading “Another Look: I Am a Pastor”

Thursday in Holy Week: Love Best Described in Poetry

For Maundy Thursday • • • There are some things that can, perhaps, only be said in poetry, and perhaps this [Phil 2:5-11] is one of them. • Tom Wright PHILIPPIANS 2:5-11 Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himselfContinue reading “Thursday in Holy Week: Love Best Described in Poetry”

To be lifted up carefully and carried out of confinement

✑ When I woke up this morning, before I’d gotten out of bed, I was looking around to see what was going on in my room. Not much was going on, I’m happy to say. But there was a cricket on the glazed stone floor. He didn’t belong in the room. Crickets don’t belong inContinue reading “To be lifted up carefully and carried out of confinement”

Poetry Week: From an Interview with Eugene Peterson

Note from CM: If you’ve read Internet Monk for any length of time, you know that both Michael Spencer and I have benefited immensely from the work of Eugene Peterson. For many, many reasons, not least of which is Peterson’s love for language and his insistence on rich conversation as a main ingredient of pastoral work.Continue reading “Poetry Week: From an Interview with Eugene Peterson”

Another Look: Why Even I Am Welcome at My Church

An imagined , but entirely possible, conversation: Concerned Christian: Chaplain Mike, if you were a pastor, would you allow gays to attend your church? CM: Sure. If they wanted to come to church, why shouldn’t I? Concerned Christian: Well, doesn’t the Bible forbid homosexuality? CM: Let’s say it does. Wouldn’t church be a good placeContinue reading “Another Look: Why Even I Am Welcome at My Church”

Another Look: The Imagination of Faith

What part does imagination play in faith? Can “truth” be communicated through legend, folk tales, poetry, and music? Many Christmas songs have little to do with describing detailed historical facts. Instead, they evoke images from nature, the Biblical narratives, and the cultures from which they arise to help us not only understand but also feel the meaning and significanceContinue reading “Another Look: The Imagination of Faith”

Reformation Considerations: An Interview with William Sola

Note from CM: In the light of Reformation Day and the beginning of the year-long celebration of the Ref’s 500th anniversary, we will present some articles this week on Reformation themes. Michael Spencer, whose views about Protestantism and Catholicism developed and changed a great deal over the years of his writing, once said that the Reformation,Continue reading “Reformation Considerations: An Interview with William Sola”

Another Look: A Long Pause from Impermanence

I hope no reader will suppose that “mere” Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communions — as if a man could adopt it in preference to Congregationalism or Greek Orthodoxy or anything else. It is more like a hall out of which doors open into several rooms. If IContinue reading “Another Look: A Long Pause from Impermanence”

A Parable of Wrestling

For your meditation and contemplation today, this parable told by Ron Rolheiser: In his autobiography, the renowned writer Nikos Kazantzakis shares a conversation he had with an old monk named Father Makários. Sitting with the saintly old man, Kazantzakis asked him: “Do you still wrestle with the devil, Father Makários?” The old monk reflected forContinue reading “A Parable of Wrestling”