Three is a Magic Number

"Does Creator/God actually want us to worship them?" I was recently drawn to this question posed on a friend's Facebook page.  I've grappled with this question several times in my life too, so I offered a comment and now have been thinking about it for the last couple of days.  It's like a little marble rolling around in my brain.     At certain times in my life, I've felt corporate worship--and the resources churches put into it--aren't consistent with God's desire for humans. In fact, at different points, I've actually thought we need to give up on worship, or at least the form its taken over the last 200 years.  I can't actually imagine a God who wants us to use our time and money to lavish praise and adoration on him/her while people are starving and hurting in the world.  Yet, I continue to come back to worship as the most important spiritual practice in my life (which is no surprise for you who have known me over the years). ...

To Rachel Marie, the Person who Taught Me How to be a Friend, Before 2nd grade…  You were simply the girl who wore dresses to school but reminded us, “it is still ok to participate in gym because I have shorts underneath.”   You were the girl who was sensitive enough to cry easily when emotions ran high.   You were the girl who bounced on her tippy-toes down the school halls.   But sometime during 2nd grade, I came to know you as a friend.   I’ve been rummaging through my memories, trying to recall how it happened.   We certainly spent a lot of time together at church, so I’m guessing our road to friendship was the comfortable path of familiarity in each other’s presence.   At some point… You became the person I wanted to stand by in line. You became the person I looked for on the playground. You became the person I had the courage to call and ask, “Do you want to play?   Do you want to have a sleepover?” By 3rd grade,...

Christians from across the US are disgusted with Jeff Sessions and Sarah Sanders' interpretation of Scripture to justify separating children and parents who are seeking asylum.   I am disgusted too.   My facebook feed is filled with people offering a Christ-like, loving alternatives to this twisted interpretation of Scripture.   I can’t offer anything different or new, but if your facebook feed doesn’t look like mine, and you don’t know why Sessions and Sanders are wrong, let me offer you the highlights. 1.        Sanders and Sessions are proof texting.   Don’t know what that is?   Go here . Biblical scholars often point out the dangers of proof texting.   (Side note:   If you do it in seminary, you get a bad grade.   Trust me—I tried it once.)   Why is it bad?   It undermines the authority of the Bible when people cherry pick passages to make points that aren’t necessarily consistent with the overarch...