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Come Sunday and Our Cynical Response to Preaching
The Film, Come Sunday shows what happens when a pentecostal preacher gets a message from Jesus about Hell and how the people refuse to take responsibility for their cynical response. [This is a reflection on the church through the lens of the film Come Sunday. If you are not familiar with the story of Carlton…
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Prayers For When the Snow Refuses to Stop Falling
Growing up in northern Michigan, the idea of snow in April isn’t weird to me. It wasn’t even weird to think about snow making an appearance in May or June. And at the other end of the calendar, we had to integrate snowsuits into our Halloween costume design. But that doesn’t mean we don’t get…
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Being Present
While Easter stories rely on the absence of Jesus in the empty tomb, they also establish the presence of Jesus with the apostles to be the presence of Christ for each other. Easter and the returning presence of Jesus Easter 3B | Luke 24:36b-48 When someone tells me they like the prequels to Star Wars,…
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The Trouble with Easter
THE TROUBLE WITH EASTER You have to admit that Easter kind of sucks. Don’t get me wrong, the resurrection is great and everything and I love those cream eggs but next to Lent, this season is all treble and no bass. We spent 40+ days holding back praying and abstaining contemplating the persistent darkness and…
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Beyond Guns
Mike Pesca seems to think Charles C. W. Cooke would make an honest argument against gun reform. Here’s why I don’t. I’ve gotten pretty tired of arguing about guns. Not because I don’t like arguing or that I don’t have any good ideas, but it’s more that I don’t think we’re having an honest conversation.…
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The Tale of Two Easters
In our readings from Acts and John, we get two very different stories of the apostles responding to the risen Christ. But they both actually point to the same teaching. Luke and John reveal a false choiceEaster 2B | Acts 4:32-35, John 20:19-31 In Holy Week, we traced the last week of Jesus with the…
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So This is Where We Are
SO THIS IS WHERE WE ARE Teenage survivors speak out. The media follows the story. Some grown-ups pass pictures of the teens with targets on their chests. An adult talk show host teases a teen for not getting into all the schools. Calls come for advertisers to pull ads from her show. Some don’t. One…
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Before Christ is Risen
For Christians, the empty tomb is a strange image for Easter — we struggle with what God is actually giving us: the need to wrestle with Jesus’s absence before we can find him present. Mary confronts death before seeing new life Easter | John 20:1-18 There is more to say than “Christ is Risen!” Not…
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