Category: Pain and Suffering
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Easter 2020 Sermon (short, chopped, mini version) – New Birth Into a Living Hope
If God can raise Jesus from the dead, God can handle coronavirus!
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2020 Easter Sermon – “New Birth into a Living Hope” (complete text)
If God can raise Jesus from the grave, God can handle coronavirus!
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“I press on” – a message to pastors, ministry leaders, and anyone else struggling with uncertainty and insecurity in the face of a global pandemic
Above all, the most pervasive feeling I’m wrestling with, these days, is uncertainty.
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“How are you doing?”: the many moods of an introverted pastor in an age of coronavirus
Like you, I suspect, many friends and colleagues have recently asked me, “How are you doing,” as we endure this strange season of coronavirus. Of course, I’m asking the same of them. It’s an understandable question. These are strange, unprecedented times, for all of us.
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“It’s the end of the Church as we know it, and I feel fine.”
What is the Church’s role in this crisis? Most Church professionals are trying to figure that out, as best we can, day by day. Seven days ago, the idea of closing the Church for a virus seemed preposterous. Seven days later, we’re planning for the possibility of months of closure. …
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“Compassionate Community” – a sermon prepared for First Church Orlando, for our series, “Christ Centered Community”
“12 Christ is just like the human body—a body is a unit and has many parts; and all the parts of the body are one body, even though there are many. 13 We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jew or Greek, or slave or free, and we…
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We’re ALL afraid…
Every mass shooting reignites the same debate over guns – gun owner rights vs. gun law reform. Before I go any further, I should confess I don’t own guns, and I don’t like guns. I never have, and likely never will. I don’t feel a need to own one. In…
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Is Jesus helpless?
Is it possible, these tragedies keep happening, because we’ve rendered God ineffectual by our collective disbelief? Have we, as a society, drifted so far from God, or believe so little in God, that we’ve effectively shut the door?
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SuperSoul Question #8: “What do you know for sure?” (Part 8, of an eight-part series of posts, based on interview questions Oprah typically asks on her SuperSoul Conversations Podcast.)
God exists… God is good… God is for us, not against us.
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Lament
I posted the following on my Facebook page in September, 2016. Someone reposted it today. I feel like I could have written it today…. Lament. “Listen to my words, Lord, consider my lament.” Psalm 5:1 For months, I’ve read many posts about issues ranging from gay marriage to the presidential election…
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