"If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.” Matthew 21:22

My nephew Braden just got confirmed at Faith Lutheran in Topeka. My wife made him the banner and I made him the painting.
Mallory

"Kierkegaard: 'A bunch of scheming swindlers'

Kierkegaard: 'A bunch of scheming swindlers'

"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church's prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes, it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament."

- Soren Kierkegaard

PRAYER:
Dear Jesus,
Help me to surrender
Let me fall into Your hands
Help me to surrender to Your truths
Your Word
Your will
not mine
Amen

Click at the right to email a prayer request
Mallory

The volume of friendship

PRAYER
The volume of friendship
by Alex House

Lord, make a factory of peace,

Make more hope,

Hate, the least.

Make war as small as a speck of sand

And terrorism a wick on a candle that burns to ashes.

And make love and peace as big as a skyscraper.

And hope like a mountain that's 1,000 feet tall.

And make the volume of friendship be so loud

It shakes the ground.


Alex House lives in Upton, Massachusetts. He wrote this poem in Sunday school on Feb. 16, 2003, when he was 8 years old.

Heaven Can't Wait (Promo) David Schimke

"Heaven Can't Wait
Jesus was a radical, and it's time to start saying so"
Here's an excellent piece on being politically progressive and theologically orthodox.

Here's an exerpt:

"The thing is, I do believe. I spent my childhood running through the halls of my family's big old church. Mom taught Bible school, Dad directed the choir, and the minister who confirmed me remains a philosophical and spiritual counselor. They made me the bleeding heart I am.

The Jesus they taught me about lived and died in the name of justice, in the spirit of peace. He was an anti-establishment activist who begot peacemakers from Gandhi to Chavez, King to Mandela. And I had forsaken him: in social circles, because my progressive friends equated Western religion with naivete; professionally, because I wanted to get the story. And while, on some level, I will always be sorting out the whole religion thing, I'm no longer reticent to say that I believe Jesus walked the earth. That I believe he provoked the powerful, considered economic injustice a sin, and welcomed all people -- no matter what their race, religion, sex, or sexual preference -- without judgment or expectation.

In short, I believe Jesus was a radical, and the time has come to start saying so."