Vocation in Action

  Prayer of Invocation Father, because without you we are not able to bear fruit, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. Prayer of Illumination   Father, open our eyes to the ways that we are deceived and enticed; enable us to trust in your goodness and provision; grant us patience as we wait for You to teach us and make us what you want us to be.  Teach us to keep in step with the Spirit, who is conforming us to Your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.  Proclamation At many times, and in many ways, we come to a fork in the road,  where we ask ourselves, Is God good? Should I continue to trust him? Does he really have my best interest in mind? Is he really going to deliver on his promise?  Sometimes that junction comes in the form of a disorienting event that seems to contradict God’s pledge to protect us. At other

 Article can be found here .  Summer is officially here! People often think of the New Year as the time to make resolutions and develop new habits like eating better or going to the gym. What is often overlooked is that summer provides us with opportunities for course adjustments as well. Often our normal daily and weekly rhythms are disrupted or altered by summertime. Kids are out of school; there is more daylight; we take vacations, etc. Because of this, summer is a good opportunity to reflect upon, and even reconsider, what our daily and weekly rhythms are and how they might be shaping us. There is a saying in business: “culture eats strategy for lunch”. In other words, a business can have the best plans in the world, but the daily rhythms, attitudes, and habits of the company—the culture—will ultimately determine how successful the business becomes. And good strategy cannot overcome a bad work culture. The same is true for our personal lives. We can have the best of inten

    One thing I asked of the   Lord ,      that will I seek after: to live in the house of the  Lord      all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the  Lord ,      and to inquire in his temple.  Psalm 27.4 NRSV    I have asked one thing from the   Lord —      it’s all I seek:          to live in the  Lord ’s house all the days of my life,          seeing the  Lord ’s beauty          and constantly adoring his temple.  Psalm 27.4 CEB Beauty. More specifically, the beauty of the Lord. Is that what I want?  We get glimpses throughout the Bible where we are faced with the question, What's the one thing you want from God?  The first words of Jesus in the Gospel of John are, What do you want (John 1.38)?  Solomon asked for wisdom (1 Kings 3.1-15).  David asked to behold the beauty of the LORD.  So often I come to God as a means to an end. God is instrumental: he enables, he empowers, he helps, he delivers, he provides something I need, etc.  When is the last time I have come to h

  Made to Be Known, Known to Bring Peace.   We all come into the world looking for someone who is looking for us.   This is one of the most significant insights of neuroscience: our brains together with our bodies are made in such a way that they need others in order to function properly. In other words, at the very level of biology, physiology, and chemistry, we are designed to be interdependent; we are made to thrive by living in a community of vulnerability. We need to be seen by another, to be noticed by another, to be attended to by another, to be known, and to be cared for.   This is not a unique insight, of course. Genesis 1-2 tells us a similar story. It is not good for us to be alone. The world is an intricately ordered place of hyper-relationality. That is to say that all things function best when they are in right relationship with God’s ordering. Humans flourish when they are in right relationship to God, right relationships with others, have a proper sense of self-un