This is a vuvuzula. It is a long, narrow horn that really caught on in World Cup soccer matches a few years back. These simple horns can produce up to 120 decibels of sound when you are standing just three feet in front of them. That is as loud as a rock concert or a…
The Spirit of Community
This summer at Immanuel, we have been exploring how the Holy Spirit shows up in the lives of characters throughout the scriptures. Today, we find two men who have very different attitudes towards the work of God: the sorcerer and the eunuch. Philip is a deacon, a servant of the church, and he encounters lots…
The Spirit of Kindness
One afternoon when I was serving the church in Marengo, a young woman walked into the church and asked to use the telephone. Not a problem, I said. We talked for a bit and I learned she had just been released from the county jail, was 80 miles from home, and no one was coming…
The Wealth in our Wallets instead of the Well-being of the World
This afternoon I watched the United States join two nations… Syria and Nicaragua… in being the only three nations in the entire world that are no longer signers of the Paris Climate Accord. As I listened to the justifications, what I heard over and over again was the mention of a few economic sectors that…
The Hope of the World is Us
The President of the United States is currently weighing whether or not to withdraw our nation from the Paris climate accord. Political leaders within our country are skeptical about the science behind climate change and its causes. One congressman said this past week: “As a Christian, I believe that there is a creator in God who is…
Rising Strong: Failing and Falling
In this “Rising Strong” series, we have remembered a few things so far about what it means to live as children of the resurrection. First – we have to be ourselves. God has uniquely created us with gifts and skills and has put us in this place for this time. We shouldn’t spend our days…
Rising Strong: Go All In
You know, in churches we like to use words like repentance and transformation – all words for making radical changes in our lives. But, the truth is, the church is often the LAST place change occurs. One of my mentors often reminds me that church is often our escape from rapid change that happens in…
From Everywhere to Everywhere (2.0)
This Sunday, I was making my way back from our bi-annual Global Ministries meeting and so took the opportunity to do a brief rewrite of the message I preached at Ingathering: This quadrennium, I have the honor of serving on our General Board of Global Ministries: Last fall, in our opening worship, we read the…