522 results for tag: blog

It All Comes From God – by Greg Albrecht

Here in the United States this is the time after Thanksgiving. It's a time of the year when it can be so easy to forget that what we are eating and enjoying is what God has given us, for every good and perfect gift is from above…(James 1:17). Here in the U.S. we just experienced Black Friday—the day after Thanksgiving, a day when many people are off work and flood the shopping malls, trying to get a head start on Christmas shopping. Another year of Christmas hype is in full swing. It's a time when Christmas decorations, advertisements, and promotions urge us to buy and spend, and during such a time it's so easy to forget that anything and ...

CWR Video – Our Incarnated Lives – by Steve McVey

https://player.vimeo.com/video/115914372

One Week in December – by Greg Albrecht

Friend and Partner Letter from December 2024: On Monday, a couple signed divorce papers. The end of 32 years together – now a fractured family, with three children, in-laws and many friends. What will happen now? Does this divorce matter to God? So this is Christmas? On Tuesday, a husband and father left work, got on a bus to go home to his family. Two young people appeared, demanding his money, cell phone and wedding ring. He resisted, was beaten and stabbed and left to die as the teens left the bus. Where was God? On Wednesday, a 60-year-old woman visited her doctor to receive news of her recent tests. She was not shocked to hear her ...

The Peace of Thanksgiving – by Ed Dunn

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful – Colossians 3:15 Thanksgiving just gets me all warm and tingly and all kinds of wonderful inside - Willard Scott There is something magical about a Thanksgiving Day morning. Maybe it’s the fact that Thanksgiving Day is a guaranteed holiday (and the next day too) for most people from the rigors and routine of normal workplace demands. Maybe it’s the sense that if you wake up early enough, life as we experience it in the day-to-day seems to quiet for a while. Maybe it’s the crispness of the autumn air outside, cup of ...

Generosity Without Expectations – Greg Albrecht

A youth group from a prosperous North American suburb volunteered to help a pastor serve meals in an inner-city soup kitchen. Before this experience, most of these young people had only seen homeless people through their car windows as they and their family happened to drive through a poor part of town. It was just before Thanksgiving, and the young people served a hot meal of beans, turkey, mashed potatoes and yams to a long line of people. As they filed past these young people filling empty plates with generous servings, few of the homeless people made any eye contact with the young people who were serving the free meal, and only a few ...

Meals on Wheels – by Greg Albrecht

Earlier this year my wife and I attended memorial services for the wife of an older gentleman who frequents the same gym where my wife and I exercise. Jerrat is one of a number of seniors who arrive early at the gym, virtually every day. We have joined this group about three times a week over the last 6-8 years. A group of about 20 of us from the gym (we call ourselves gym rats) joined Jerrat, his family, loved ones and friends, supporting them during this time of loss. A week or so after the funeral my wife Karen decided to make some dinner for Jerrat. We called him and asked him if we could come to his house and bring him dinner. He was so ...

God’s Love and Grace Lifts Us Up – by Greg Albrecht

Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing… and doing things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry…The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river.         – Will and Ariel Durant   We cannot ignore the warfare, bloodshed, brutality, oppression, poverty and disease that are a part of the river of history, a noxious, defiled sewer that contin...

An Offer We Can’t Refuse – by Greg Albrecht

Luke 14:15-24 There are more than 38,000 Christian denominations around this world. Over 3.5 million congregations that identify themselves as Christian churches formally gather together, on a regular basis, around this world. But did you know, in spite of what I've just said, that there is only one Christian church in Germany? Only one in Italy? Only one in India? Only one in China? And only one in the United States and Canada. I'm speaking, of course, about the church of Jesus Christ —not about a humanly incorporated corporation or institution—but about the one church of the body of Christ. Our passage speaks of a great banquet. Here is a ...

Liminal Spaces – by Bermie Dizon

My wife and I have a friend who is moving out of their home and relocating to another state. Our friend shared how challenging this process has been, and I can completely relate. Most of us have faced the stress of moving, and dealing with unexpected challenges that feel like curve-balls. Recently, I came across a word that perfectly captures this experience—liminal. Having come from the Philippines and learning English in school, liminal is a new word for me. Liminal spaces refer to those in-between moments—the threshold between where we've been and where we're going. It's that time when one door has closed, but the next one hasn't yet ...

Rest for the Weary – by Greg Albrecht

I heard a story about an American missionary named David who served in an African town several decades ago. David was amazed to see the heavy loads and burdens the Africans carried on their heads as a part of their regular jobs. The most astonishing individual he met, in this regard, was a lady who had perfected the technique of carrying heavy loads on her head to such a degree that her peers called her "the human delivery truck." Amazing at it seems to us, she delivered engine blocks from cars and trucks from one repair shop to another. According to the story, four men would lift the engine block on to a tray that she carried on her head—she ...

Empty Your Pockets – by Greg Albrecht

Friend and Partner Letter for November 2024: Erma Bombeck (1927-1996) was a beloved American writer. Her humor, in newspaper columns and 15 books, was flavored with inspiration and wisdom. She concluded a newspaper column published on March 10, 1987 with these insights (my emphasis in bold): “I always had a dream that when I am asked to give an accounting of my life to a higher court, it will go like this: ‘So, empty your pockets. What have you got left of your life? Any dreams that were unfulfilled? Any unused talent that we gave you when you were born that you still have left? Any unsaid compliments or bits of love that you haven’t ...

Are You a Believer? – by Greg Albrecht

Many Christians use the word believer as a short definition of their way of life and as a way of separating their practices and teachings from non-believers. Without further qualification, the term believer can be just one more in a long list of clichés and "in-house" terminology. After all, a believer might describe someone who believes in UFOs and aliens from outer space. A believer might describe someone who actually believes in the ghosts and goblins of Halloween. So the term believer begs for further definition, doesn't it? Belief in what or who? The answer may seem to be obvious, but sadly, in many cases it isn't. Ponder with me two ...

Loving Legalism – No Such Thing! – by Greg Albrecht

From the time the first human beings walked the face of the earth, literally billions of people have been living lives of religious legalism—attempting to do for themselves what God has already done for them—trying to replace God's infinitely powerful grace with empty, useless human effort. After Jesus came to us, telling us about and showing us God's unconditional love, and after establishing his church, it seems we should have gotten the point. But even though Jesus, God in the flesh, came as one of us revealing the Father, religious legalism continues even among people who claim to be Christians. In fact legalism, as a counte...

Unity, Liberty and Charity – by Greg Albrecht

IT’S FAR FROM BREAKING NEWS! Our world is hopelessly divided, embroiled in continuing controversy. With soul-depressing regularity it seems entire news networks and organizations here in the United States spew out one and only one polarizing political perspective, demonizing all who disagree. Then there is the religious world, where “devout” people whose holy books tell them to love their neighbors are instead terrorizing and persecuting and even killing those who disagree. Politics divides us and Christ-less religion separates us.  You may remember the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648) – what began as a war between Catholics and ...

See How He Loves Us – by Greg Albrecht

There's a great story about a little boy who was trying to learn the Lord's Prayer. One night he was kneeling down by his bed, and he prayed: "Our Father who are in heaven, how do you know my name?" St. Augustine, revered as one of the great theologians of the Christian faith, once said that Jesus loves each of us as if there was no one else to love.Time after time we read in the four Gospels about people Jesus met who felt and experienced his radically personalized, individual affection—no one they had ever known had talked to them, treated them and spent time with them the way Jesus did. The eyes out of which Jesus saw and perceived ...

The Four “No’s” of Our Lives in Christ – by Ed Dunn

Do not be afraid…for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom (Luke 12:32, NIV). …fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfector of our faith (Hebrews 12:2, NIV). What does it mean to live our lives in Christ Jesus with the Four No's - No Fear, No Shame, No Guilt and No Doubt? No Fear: Fear seems to be such a common driver, a motivator, and a “come-from” in the world in which we live today. Headlining each day’s key news cycles, the media feeds we the public on an unrelenting diet of what to fear and who to blame for that fear. Our politicians first campaign on, and then govern from, a continual focus on all ...

It’s About Time – by Sheila Graham

A brown leaf drifts slowly to the ground outside the window. There’s a sense of quiet expectation. Though the trees are still green, the smattering of dry leaves across the lawn hint at what's to come.      We know we can look forward to the cooler temperatures now. It’s that brief space of time between the seasons’ triple-digit heat and below-freezing cold, the lovely time of fall.      Springtime is the same. It’s as if a switch has been thrown. The searing heat of summer and the icy cold of winter seem to be endless, but whatever the season we know relief is coming. Fall, winter, ...

Resting in Christ Jesus – by Greg Albrecht

Friend and Partner Letter from October 2024: Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest – Matthew 11: 28   These monthly letters are normally a way of providing some Christ-centered nourishment, one of the most important parts of our ministry. When we pray about, ponder and prepare these letters (primarily Ed Dunn and myself as writers, but the team who ensures these letters arrive in the mail and are posted digitally includes all editors and proofreaders) we take each letter seriously, often spending many hours before completing one. We don’t just dash these letters out, but we carefully and ...

18 Prominent Biblical Passages and Why – by Greg Albrecht

Greg Albrecht Recently I was asked to provide a list of my top ten verses in the Bible. The request specified that each of the ten selections be restricted to just one, or at most, several verses and no more. I tried, but I could never boil my list down to just ten brief passages, so I decided to respond by expanding on the original request. I set out to make a list of top ten passages. At first I thought that I could come up with my top ten passages in the Bible if I allowed for "passages" to be more than simply a verse or two but a chapter or even an entire book of the Bible. But then, after working on that plan, I was still stymied. I ...

What is True Fellowship? – by Greg Albrecht

What's the first thing that comes to your mind when you read or hear the word fellowship? Within a Christian context the word usually calls to mind something to do with companionship and community. For some people fellowship is just another religious thing they have to do or (so they believe) God won't be happy with them. In many cases, fellowship means going to places to spend time with others who are also members of their church. Fellowship has also come to signify a spiritual atmosphere that will soothe and secure a person from the life they live. Given this meaning, fellowship can become something like "hot-tub religion"—a place where people ...