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Why Add Another Holy Week Service?

March 29, 2009

God willing, this year we will celebrate the week leading up to Jesus’ death and resurrection (Holy Week) with both a Maundy Thursday service and a Good Friday service.  Since we try not to add services without purpose at Whitton Avenue, I thought I would give a brief explanation for why we are doing this.
The [...]

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Praying the Lord’s Prayer with a Pause Button

March 20, 2009

Tonight we gather in the sanctuary for a “Concert of Prayer” from 6:30 - 7:30.  For some, the words “concert” and “prayer” belong to two different worlds, so to dispel any imaginations of guys playing electric guitars on their knees, I thought I would share what we hope the hour to look like.
First of all, [...]

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Bonus Features of Spirituality

March 15, 2009

There is some neurosis in my brain, some compulsivity that draws me toward the “Extra features” of a movie or TV show DVD.  I must exhaust the contents of the disk, even if the movie was not terribly compelling.  And this frequently involves watching the “deleted scenes” of the show.
I recognize that most people do [...]

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Delivering the Practical Package a Few Days Late

March 8, 2009

As our family ate lunch on Sunday afternoon, it dawned on me that I had promised to “get practical” at the end of the sermon and, in all my enthusiasm, failed to deliver the goods.  I asked Rachael and she graciously confirmed this, so I thought I would use the space here to work out [...]

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Memory Verses for March 09

March 5, 2009

1 Corinthians 3:18-23
“Let no one deceive himself.  If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.  For the wisdom of this world is folly with God.  For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows [...]

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Bread and Games

March 3, 2009

Part of my current reading for seminary is a 600-page work that gives an “introduction” to the political, religious, social, and cultural background of the New Testament.  In that reading, I came across a phrase with which I was unfamiliar: “bread and games” (or “bread and circuses”).  Juvenal, a Roman poet, coined the phrase not [...]

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