We’re focusing this year on spiritual formation, and I want to use this blog in service of that larger, overarching conversation about what it means to be shaped into the image and likeness of Christ. To begin, then, I want to explore more specifically the ways in which Christian discipleship depends upon the discipline of [...]

Forty days before Easter is a season traditionally called Lent (it begins with Ash Wednesday, February 22nd this year). Christian communities all over the world use this time to intentionally make room for God in their lives through fasting, praying and special gatherings. It constitutes what I think can be good religion.

As a Pentecostal, [...]

“I think everyone has to find his own spiritual path to God,” my fellow shopper said.

I don’t remember how we got on the subject of finding God. He may have asked me what I did for a living and I told him I was a pastor. At any rate, we were in a deep [...]

“Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD; O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared [awesomely revered].”    Psalm 130:1-4 (NIV)

If [...]