One of the daily readings* for this week was Matthew 18:1-5, which goes like this:                 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked,                 “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”                Then Jesus called a little child over to sit among the disciples, and said,                 “I assure you that if you don’t turn your lives around                   and become like this little child,                     you will definitely not enter the kingdom of heaven.  ...

My pastor’s blog this week is simply the entirety of Larry Stookey’s prayer “in times of great distress due to natural disaster or humanly devised evil” from his book, “This Day.”                 God, our help and hope in every time of life:                                 we bow before you in distress and confusion.                 Devastation and death seem to rule your world today.                 We know not where to turn, nor even how to pray.                 Assure us that you know our thoughts before we think them;  ...

     Whenever a chorus repeats in a song, I think one of two things is going on: 1.        We’re really into it, and the leader notices and repeats to keep it going. 2.        The leader is really into it, and wants us to give it “one more look.”      This isn’t just a modern phenomenon. It goes way, way back… back even to the Psalms. doesn’t happen often (okay, today there are lots of times when we sing a chorus over and over again; at a former church we called it “Hillsong-ing” a song… all apologies to the lovely people at Hillsong) – it doesn’t happen often in the Psalms – so, when it does, I think we ought to pay attention.      Psalm 8, for example, begins and ends (verses 1 and 9)with the same words: “O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” It’s like a praise song chorus being revisited by those who want to adore the Lord some mor...