“No one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me.” Mark 9:40 You may be familiar with an outfit called the Church Ad Project. Started some years ago by a dynamic Episcopal priest with an interest in evangelism and church marketing, it got some…

What do today’s business leaders and the child that Jesus picks up have in common? Let’s consider this question, in the name of the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. An interesting book entitled “Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within” was written by Robert E. Quinn, who teaches organizational behavior and human resource development at…

You have seen them everywhere: bracelets, key rings, and just about anything that can be marked with the logo, WWJD: “What Would Jesus Do?” It’s daunting to wear one of those bracelets because in most situations, how would we be qualified to answer that question? How could we ever presume to know what Jesus would…

I suspect that “pushy” women do an enormous amount of the work that keeps the world going. One very popular pushy woman is Baroness Thatcher of Grantham, the first woman to serve as Britain’s Prime Minister. In the late 1980s, Mrs. Thatcher was often criticized for being “school-marmish” and “hectoring.” But if she were a…

“Sit up straight! Elbows off the table! Napkin in your lap! Wait until everyone has been served before you begin to eat! And close your mouth when you chew!” The rituals associated with eating begin early in a child’s life and grow more complex with our journey toward maturity. In every culture these rituals are…

Remember the old gospel hymn, “When the roll is called up yonder”? Today’s scripture challenges Christians’ exercise of God’s gift to servant ministry and how we will respond to God when we are called to share in God’s “glory.” Throughout our lessons Joshua, David, Paul, and Jesus lay challenges of servant ministry before us. It…

“Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars.” The King James language would have been familiar to Lawrence of Arabia when he titled his long and idiosyncratic memoirs of the Middle East “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.” In Proverbs 9, the reference to the seven pillars is probably an allusion to…

Cafe Beaujolais, a wonderful bakery on the northern California coast, makes a rich, dense bread they call Austrian Sunflower Bread, boasting different seeds and grains and yielding a golden loaf of complex texture and rich flavor. This is how it’s described in their materials: “Austrian Sunflower Bread, our healthiest loaf, is hearty and moist, keeps…