Just as it takes a farmer to really identify BS, it takes a preacher to recognize self-righteousness…a preacher who has been there, done that, and who is still pretty good at it. – Steve Brown, Three Free Sins * * * I’m one of those preachers and I ought to just own up. So, hereContinue reading “Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid”
Category Archives: Spiritual Formation
Another Look: How I Got to “OK”
Note from CM: For the past couple of days I’ve been trying to write a post summarizing our discussions on the kind of discipleship being promoted by teachers like Francis Chan. I’ve made fits and starts and have not been satisfied with how the words were coming out. Then, in looking through the archives, IContinue reading “Another Look: How I Got to “OK””
No Super-Christians
Would you describe yourself as totally in love with Jesus Christ? Or do the words halfhearted, lukewarm, and partially committed fit better? – Francis Chan, Crazy Love * * * We’ve been having quite a discussion since I posted Francis Chan’s video about “Aging Biblically” yesterday and said that I found it worthy of a rant. ThoughContinue reading “No Super-Christians”
The Blessings of Boredom
NOTE FROM CM: Though Damaris’ post is not about sports, it does address our culture of entertainment and “hyperstimulation” in which sports plays a part. As an example, having spent hours in the Super Bowl Village over the weekend, I can safely say it was a sensory extravaganza — all stimulation all the time. What’sContinue reading “The Blessings of Boredom”
Virtue and the Limits of Vulnerability
I received some thoughtful mail as a result of my response to Mark Driscoll’s book on marriage. Here is one of the best examples: Dear Chaplain Mike, I have just finished reading your post Top of My “Don’t Read” List. In it you mention that American culture has a strong “therapeutic ethos” and that thisContinue reading “Virtue and the Limits of Vulnerability”
Looking forward to “Sabbath”
If there is no Sabbath — no regular and commanded not-working, not-talking — we soon become totally absorbed in what we are doing and saying, and God’s work is either forgotten or marginalized. When we work we are most god-like, which means that it is in our work that it is easier to develop god-pretensions.Continue reading “Looking forward to “Sabbath””
Song for Ordinary Time (14): Order My Life
This is a simple worship chorus I wrote years and years ago, linked with two verses from a favorite hymn. Together, they form a prayer that God will bring order to our inner worlds and cause us to cling to him. The recording is by no means professional, but I hope it will not detractContinue reading “Song for Ordinary Time (14): Order My Life”
Watering the Garden
Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth-century Christian, taught extensively about the inner life of prayer and communion with God. She compared it to watering a garden. Without prayer our capacity to love will wither and die. But not all prayer nourishes our souls the same way, just as not all forms of watering a garden areContinue reading “Watering the Garden”
Prepositions Matter
“…the grammarian’s last daughter opened her bag. “Out came the prepositions: of, to, from, with, at, by, in, under, over, and so on. When she’d put them into the bag, they had seemed like hooks or angles. Now, departing in orderly rows, they reminded her of ants. Granted, they were large ants, each one theContinue reading “Prepositions Matter”
A Simple Pattern of Spiritual Formation
I’ve been reading Skye Jethani’s excellent new book, With: Reimagining the Way You Relate to God. I hope to comment on it more this week, including a full review. For now, as a Sunday afternoon meditation, I offer this excerpt in which Jethani sets forth a cycle that describes the way many of us experienceContinue reading “A Simple Pattern of Spiritual Formation”
The Internet Monk Archives 