Sorting by

×
Skip to main content
Category

Magazine

Reviews

Probing America’s Premiere Youth Ministry

Making Jesus Attractive: The Ministry and Message of Young Life MAKING JESUS ATTRACTIVE: THE MINISTRY AND MESSAGE OF YOUNG LIFE GRETCHEN SCHOON TANIS PICKWICK PUBLICATIONS, 2016 178 PAGES $23 A friend who is a senior ministry leader with Young Life tells the story of the reaction he received at a high school reunion from a former classmate after they swapped details of what they were up to now. “You work for Young Life?” the classmate asked. “Hey, I liked marching…
June 30, 2017
Poetry

A Nice Bit of Work

If I sit on the porch and look out on the morning, It is the dust I first see on the window panes, Smudged here and there where my hand has brushed it And speckled where condensation has dried. I could stop here and think about cleaning, About making the moment better next time. Or I might grasp the obvious metaphor And scrub away at my own grimy soul, But I would rather watch the tiny bug Crawling up the…
June 30, 2017
Essays

The Whole Church Gathered: How Bonhoeffer’s “Discipleship” Speaks to the Church Today

“When children expect something it is impossible to give only part of oneself to them.” ­­– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, quoted in Eberhard Bethge, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Theologian, Christian, Man for His Times: A Biography.  The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer begins his book Discipleship by saying, “It is not ultimately important to us what this or that church leader wants. Rather, we want to know what Jesus wants.” Bonhoeffer wrote these words after the Gestapo shut down his beloved seminary in Finkenwalde. They…
June 30, 2017
Inside Out

Is their Span but Toil and Trouble?

“All our days pass away under thy wrath, our years come to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are threescore and ten, or even by reason of strength four-score; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. ... So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” – Psalm 90   When we are young, we don’t worry or think much about…
June 30, 2017
Poetry

Habitat

Miles and a moment’s ease flake away – the toddler shook us awake to ask When did Jesus paint our skin? Like memories of San Francisco we stayed a bit undusted, overlooking ourselves like silk-stranded ceiling corners. Bits of every epidermal surface flake away to pile in and around us. Cracked caulk and shower tile heap like moraine scree – not much room for the likes of a caricature plant, a euphorbia, or a firebush. Peter Bast lives and works…
June 30, 2017
Essays

Dostoevsky and the Panacea for Personal Judgment

Proverbs echo in the wind tunnel of history. We cannot help but hear reverberations of past wisdom in present-day prose. In the Manipulus Florum (“handful of flowers”), for instance, we find the following words attributed to Saint Augustine: “The pride of angels made them demons; the humility of men makes them as angels.” Quite the maxim, isn’t it? In seven hundred years, we haven’t changed all that much. Pride still brings out the worst in us, and humility, the best.…
June 30, 2017
As We See It

The Psalm Sparrow

“Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house, and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of Hosts.” –Psalm 84, Book of Common Prayer I don’t know how you can be a parish pastor and not say daily prayer. I don’t mean that critically. I mean like I don’t know how to throw a curve ball, or keep my mouth shut at a meeting. I did without daily prayer for the first…
Daniel Meeter
June 30, 2017
Essays

The Golden Rule and the Spirit of Capitalism

We Americans seem lately to be turning nearly every aspect of life into a competition in which somebody must win and somebody must lose. Many popular TV programs have people competing not just in answering quizzes or solving puzzles but also in activities like singing and dancing. Shows with singing and dancing for their own sake, without the voting or the criticism, are very rare. Romance becomes a competition on programs such as The Bachelor. Comedy Central has a show…
June 30, 2017
Reviews

Turning from Shame to Wholeness

Wholeheartedness: Busyness, Exhaustion, and Healing the Divided Self WHOLEHEARTEDNESS: BUSYNESS, EXHAUSTION, AND HEALING THE DIVIDED SELF CHUCK DEGROAT WM. B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING, 2016 208 PAGES $15 We are guilty as charged. In Wholeheartedness: busyness, exhaustion, and healing the divided self, Chuck DeGroat aptly describes our destructive internal hunger for self-perfection and personal achievement: “Ashamed of our humanness, we’re constantly aspiring to become gods. The relentless drive to perfect ourselves leads to feats of extraordinary achievement. And utter exhaustion.” He writes …
Karsten Voskuil and Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil
June 30, 2017