Jennifer Warner, Clayton Valley Presbyterian Church, Walnut Creek, CA

“You give them something to eat.” Of all the words of Scripture that we have memorized in Sunday School and posted on the walls of our churches, this usually doesn’t make the cut. We prefer other words like, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” or “Cast all your cares upon God.” This is not a sentence we want to dwell on. Read more…

Tim Glenn, Compassion International

How many of you have ever asked, “Why don’t we see ‘Jesus-type’ of miracles today?” How many of you have asked, “God, how come you don’t part the clouds and talk in a booming voice like you did in the Bible? Where’s the burning bush? The pillar of fire? I want to see a miracle like the ones they wrote about in the Bible!” Have you ever asked those questions? Ever had those thoughts? Read more…

Rev. Adam Phillips, Resurrection Covenant Church, Chicago, IL, 2008

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. - John 3:16, 17 Read more…

Abby King Kaiser, Mission Bay Community Church, Oakland, CA

The work of God is woven into the very fabric of the world. So often we do not see the threads that demonstrate that work, we simply see the blessings that result, not realizing we should be grateful to God. Psalm 19 tells us that God’s voice is present without words, but the voice is not heard. Read more…

Sensei Anthony Stultz, The Blue Mountain Lotus Society

Many of you are familiar with the great mythic story of the awakening of Shakyamuni the Buddha. Most of us know how he sat under the Bodhi tree and confronted his negative conditioning and finally realized his oneness with the entire universe. However, many of you will be unfamiliar with what happened just before this. In the narrative, Shakyamuni, then known as Siddartha, had spent several years in the woods, seeking enlightenment. He moved from the opulence of his family life to the wandering world of the ascetic. He essentially starved himself until, legend has it, he could touch his spine through his stomach. Read more…

The Rev. Mike Kinman, Episcopalians for Global Reconciliation

Matthew 14:13-21

Start snapping fingers once every three seconds – get everyone doing it.

Why are we doing this?

Who knows why we’re doing this? Who knows what these snaps represent?

Every three seconds — a child dies of preventable, treatable causes. There’s one. There’s another one. A boy. A girl. Somebody’s sister. Somebody’s son. Somebody’s friend. Even after we stop … it goes on and on and on. One every three seconds. 1,200 an hour. Nearly 30,000 a day. Read more…

Eric Bebber, Calvary Baptist Church, Washington, DC - Bread for the World Sowing Seeds Conference, 2007

Most of us are probably pretty familiar with the gospel passage for today. If not, we’ve at least heard the story of Jesus feeding the multitudes with just a few loaves of bread and a couple of fish. And for many of us, the first thing that often comes to mind when we think of this story is a picture of the actual workings of Jesus’ miracle here. Perhaps you—like me—have imagined Jesus sitting on a mat with a basket in front of him, his hands underneath a burlap sackcloth, pulling from within a bright, glowing abyss loaf after loaf after loaf. Read more…

Pastor Dan Donmoyer, St Luke Evangelical Lutheran Church, August 12, 2007

Gen 15:1-6; Heb 11:1-3, 8-16; Luke 12:32-40 11th Sunday after Pentecost

What do you think “faith” is? Define faith. [a woman responds: “belief in action”] Ah. I think you have a connection to what I am thinking. We talk a lot about belief in the church. In our first lesson is one example. We find Abram, who we mostly know as Abraham. He believed God and that believing was reckoned to him as righteousness. Read more…

Chip Huber, Wheaton Academy (Christian High School), West Chicago, IL

JAMES 1:27…Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress …

“In the end there are only two possible attitudes which Christians can adopt towards the world. One is escape and the other engagement.”
JOHN STOTT Read more…

Jon Denn, Trinity Wall Street, West Cornwall, CT

“The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of
the state, but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state, and never its tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority.”—MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., Strength to Love, 1963. Read more…