Worship that Reflects the Heart - Walter Brueggemann

“It is a curious fact that the church has, by and large, continued to sing songs of orientation in a world increasingly experienced as disoriented.” - Spirituality of the Psalms, 25

Prepare to Grow Offers Small Group Lessons

I wanted to highlight some small group material done by a good friend of mine Houston Heflin. Houston knows a lot about education and ministry and has developed several series of lessons. His website is called Prepare to Grow. Below are links to some samples of each of his lesson series.

(Download Sample lesson from Exodus: [...]

Growing Closer to God in All Seasons of Life

The 23rd Psalm is probably the most often quoted passage in the Bible. Our youth minister Joel and I were reflecting on how to teach teens about spirituality. It occurred to me that spirituality is more than just a series of consecutive mountaintop experiences. David writes about times like that with his shepherd but he [...]

Creative Ways to Integrate Scripture Into Worship

We tried a couple of new ways to incorporate scripture into our worship service during the Praise and Harmony Workshop. We did a responsive reading from portions of Psalm 136 and we also had a congregational reading of verses from Revelation 4 and 5. We have some scripture songs, where the lyrics are verbatim scripture [...]

Is God Like the IRS?

Tax time is just around the corner. We have been getting all those forms in the mail and I have just started crunching the numbers (thanks to Turbo Tax!). Turbo Tax certainly makes things a lot easier because I used to do it all by hand. Either way there is this feeling as you decipher [...]

Bernhard Anderson (1916-2007)

I was saddened to hear that biblical scholar and Old Testament theologian Bernhard Anderson died the day after Christmas. He was best known for his work on Old Testament theology and the psalms. For a more complete story see this link at BAR. For a list of his books see here.

Psalm 23 from the lips of a child

Doesn’t that just make you smile? It is great to hear children memorize and recite scripture. That is one of the things I always liked about the Lads to Leaders program. I wonder what she knows about “enemies?” It reminds me of what Helmut Thielike said about studying scripture and how often we study and [...]

Ugarit and the Old Testament

I have recently finished a book called Ugarit and the Old Testament by Peter Craigie. He tells the story of the discovery and translation of thousands of tablets of a culture contemporary with much of the early Old testament. What is so important about this archaeological discovery? The texts they have unearthed at Ugarit are [...]

How Archaeology Helps Us Understand Scripture

Archaeology plays a major role in how we understand the Bible. It is more than Indiana Jones style trips to far away lands in search of lost treasures or the holy grail. In a practical way, archaeology illuminates scripture as we come to understand the culture and language of the time in more precise ways. [...]

Rediscovering God - Hearing it Again for the First Time

Philip Yancey wrote, “Strangely, rediscovery may strike a deeper chord than discovery.” (What’s So Amazing About Grace, 52). There are fewer books in the Bible that is more true of than the Psalms. Written over half a century and read now for three thousand years the psalms are valuable in the process of rediscovering God. [...]