THE STATE OF A NATION’S SOUL Each year in mid-winter the President of the the United States makes a speech to Congress called the State of the Union address.This season, as Christian ministers, we’d like to make the state of the nation’s soul address. To do so let us look at our country through the […]
The Plague
The year—1342. The port of Genoa, Italy—a trading ship put into the harbor and dumped six bodies of dead crew members overboard. The cargo was offloaded and the crew went to their waiting families ashore. Then they began to die. Also, so did wives and children. Quickly, the epidemic spread across Europe. The contagion slew […]
Nativity
Nativity On a hill, In cold Winter, When fallen leaves lay thick and still, And nothing of green remains, I hear a baby crying in the wind. What secret this dark night hides! In all our endings something begins. Stephen M Crotts, December, 2017
All We Know About Friendship We Learned from Christ at Christmas
All We Know About Friendship We Learned from Christ at Christmas Show up. Don’t sit back and demand people come to you. Go to them. Be gracious. Be truthful. Eat together. Take a walk. Give gifts. Nurture. Ask hard questions. Listen. Laugh together. Cry. It’s okay to be sad or angry. Worship together. Share a […]
At Peace in a Fearful World
At Peace in a Fearful World Part one of Two Parts Stephen Crotts The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom should I be afraid? – Psalm 27:1 Two hoboes walk up to the gate of a farmhouse. A dog […]
Context
Last summer I spent a month at Wittenberg University in Germany studying with and teaching at night twenty-six divinity school students on the biblical view of courtship, singleness, loneliness, sex, lust, marriage, and Jesus Christ. Wittenberg is the city of the Reformation and Martin Luther. Some 60,000 people live there now. At night our group […]