The following is a response I was invited to recently give to chapter 1 of Matt Brough’s forthcoming book Let God Send: Crossing Boundaries and Serving in Christ’s Name. Matt is the Minister of Word and Sacraments at Prairie Presbyterian Church in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He also serves as the Program Coordinator for the New Worshiping Communities Initiative of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. (more…)
Category: Reflections
-
“What in the World Is Going on Today”: A Holy Saturday Reflection
My friend Paul Johansen has been sharing daily devotionals with the congregation of Good Shepherd Community Church in Scarborough, ON during this Lenten season of social distancing. He’s given me permission to share his reflection for Holy Saturday. (more…)
-
The Meaning of a Sermon: Some Wisdom from Flannery O’Connor
I’ve had the privilege of spending this week with the Doctor of Ministry cohort at Providence Theological Seminary leading them a week-long intensive course entitled “Thinking and Interpreting Theologically.” While not large in size, the members of the cohort manage to represent both coasts of Canada, the province of Manitoba, and the country of Nigeria. (more…)
-
Powerful Preaching: Fleming Rutledge’s Parchman Lectures
Fleming Rutledge recently delivered the Parchman Lectures at Truett Divinity School located at Baylor University on the theme “By the Word Worked: The Unique Power of Biblical Preaching.” I recently had the opportunity to watch the first two lectures which are available for public viewing through the Parchman Lectures Media Library.
In the second half of the first lecture, Rutledge incisively identified four trends that weaken the power of contemporary preaching, before positing five counter-affirmations about the power of the preached word. In what follows, I’ll attempt to summarize her important observations, in the hope of encouraging interested readers to watch the lecture itself. (more…)
-
The “Evangelical” Crisis
Alan Jacobs, an influential Christian public intellectual who teaches at Baylor University, has published an important piece that traces the morphing of the word “evangelical” in public discourse. He describes how the term that once referred to a vital, denomination-crossing, renewing impulse within Protestant Christianity has now in the public imagination come to refer to a political and social movement characterized by nationalistic sentiments and a vague religiosity. (more…)
-
The Preacher as Bridge-Builder: A Misguided Metaphor
Photo by kyler trautner on Unsplash One of the more prominent homiletical metaphors that is operative in the imaginations of preachers of many different stripes and backgrounds is that of the preacher as a bridge-builder between the ancient world of Scripture and our current cultural moment. Through careful rhetorical engineering, the preacher is able to construct a bridge that is capable of carrying the biblical freight across the chasm of the ages, in the process demonstrating its relevance for today. (more…)
-
“In Him All Things Hold Together”: A Theological Meditation for Aspiring Christian Universities
My Anglican friends at The Living Church have published the theological meditation I shared with the faculty of Providence University College at the opening faculty meeting of the year on their Covenant blog. You can read the full meditation here.
-
A Letter from Paul to Christians in the U.S.
Michael Gorman, a New Testament scholar whose work I have found to be both insightful and refreshing, has recently published a fictional letter from the Apostle Paul to Christians in the United States in the Christian Century. I heard Gorman present an earlier version of this letter during an address at a theological conference at Northeastern University in Rochester, NY, a couple of years ago, which was subsequently published in the Canadian Theological Review. It is well worth the read. I will be incorporating it into my upcoming Christian Ethics course. You can access it here.
-
Jean Vanier and the Wounds of Jesus
-
From Otterburne to the Four Corners of the Earth
While Providence Theological Seminary is located in the small town of Otterburne in rural Southern Manitoba, we do have students coming from all over the world. The modular course I recently offered on the “The Holy Spirit and Last Things” included students from India, Myanmar, Ukraine, Brazil, as well as Canada. I recently discovered that one my students from another class was featured this week in one of Paraguay’s national newspapers. For those who can read Spanish, here is the link: https://www.lanacion.com.py/pais_edicion_impresa/2019/03/25/mirta-una-mujer-indigena-que-se-proyecta-en-grande/.
