I fell in love with cathedrals when we were in Europe last summer. It was an unsettled love, I grant you, because every time I was in one I was conscious of the corruption in the church and the misuse of wealth it took to …
Read MoreA Beautiful History
(Message given at Newberg Friends Church on June 1, 2014) 136 years ago on this very day, our church officially began-on June 1, 1878. That is a long time ago! Much has changed in that time. Anybody know who was president in 1878? [ASK] Rutherford …
Read MoreDeep Simplicity
(Message given at Newberg Friends Church on May 25, 2014) 1 John is a frustrating book if you are very precise and want to lock things down. Throughout the book, you have these binary statements, these statements that put two things into a relationship where …
Read MoreA Literal Metaphor?
(Message given at Newberg Friends Church on May 11, 2014) If you’ve been around me very long, you know I’m a guy who loves a metaphor. Metaphors fit me like a glove. (See what I did there?) Actually all the English majors are going, “Dude, …
Read MoreTangible Basics
(Message given at Newberg Friends Church on April 27, 2014) When you are learning Greek, the place in the bible that you often get asked to translate first is the letter we call 1 John. This is because it is sort of like the Dr. …
Read MoreEaster Deepening
(Message given at Newberg Friends Church on April 20, 2014) There are lots of metaphors and pictures and images that describe Jesus and the victory of Easter. Lion. Lamb. Warrior on a white horse. But there’s one I don’t think of often, but that surprisingly …
Read MoreSteps to the Cross
(Message given at Newberg Friends Church on April 13, 2014) Psalm 31:9-16 (TNIV) Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by …
Read MoreCloud of Witnesses: Thomas the Disciple
Vincent Kaminski now teaches business at Rice University, but he once served as managing director of research for Enron…the Enron that spectacularly crashed in bankruptcy in 2001. Before the crash, Enron had grown exceedingly quickly. They got to that place with smoke and mirrors, using …
Read MoreCloud of Witnesses: Elizabeth Gurney Fry
Picture a young woman, filling her diary with her angst. She slowly slumps against the wall and a sorrowful sigh escapes from her mouth. The journal opens, and the desperate words quickly fall from her pen: “I am now seventeen, and if some kind and …
Read MoreCloud of Witnesses: Billy Graham
(Message given at Newberg Friends Church, March 9, 2014) Today’s person in the Cloud of Witnesses series is Billy Graham. In this series, we are looking at people who help us to fix our eyes on Jesus; people who encourage and challenge us to, as …
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