“Come Lord Jesus, be our guest and let your gifts to us be blessed.” As I grew up, my family said this prayer at dinner each evening before dinner, and I still use it regularly at meals. Recently it occurredRead more…
Review: Every Good Endeavor
Pretty much the highest praise I can give a book is that it is both deeply thoughtful and highly readable. Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work by Tim Keller (2012) earns that praise. Deep and thorough, itRead more…
Review: But Now I See. . .
Sometimes life throws us a curve — health or job changes, a world-wide pandemic, a midlife crisis. They often cause us to wonder if and how it all fits into God’s plan for us. In But Now I See: FindingRead more…
Tool: A Look at My Serving
What would my life look like if I saw everything I do as serving Jesus? What if I could serve more intentionally, joyfully, impactfully and faith-fully? What if my church family were to do this? What if Jesus’ followers throughoutRead more…
The Covid Pivot
Covid has brought change — tragic changes in health and employment, and inconvenient change, like mask-wearing and limits on eating out. At church we’ve dealt with change in how we worship, share communion, celebrate marriages and bury loved ones. FewRead more…
A Caregiver’s Education for Life-Long Serving
Sunday, June 29, 2010, at age 89, my mother-in-law moved in with my husband and I, at our invitation. Monday, Dec. 2, 2019, at age 99, God called her to the home she longed for. In the intervening 9 years,Read more…
Add a Little Jesus to Your Serving
“I never thought of that as serving Jesus!” I hear this a lot. We all tend to equate ‘serving Jesus’ with volunteering that is at church or that is specifically religious. But St. Paul says, “. . . whatever youRead more…
What’s Your Joy Level?
Have you measured your joy level lately? We count the miles we jog or the steps we walk and we track our bank accounts. What if we quantified our daily joy? Our joy goes up when we’re praised at work,Read more…
On Your Feet
Note: This is the fourth in a series of five reflections. The series begins here. If God’s calling us to specific tasks (see Eph. 2:10), how do we know what they are? It sounds like a high-stake guessing game. What jobRead more…
He’s Calling You
Bartimaeus was blind. And noisy. He heard Jesus was nearby and, to get his attention, he started hollering. People nearby told him to hold down the noise. But he just got louder! And when Jesus noticed and asked for Bartimaeus,Read more…
Good Stuff: Do We Overspiritualize Calling?
In “Stop Overspiritualizing Calling,” Bethany Jenkins uses her own experience as a pianist to question some aspects of the way we talk about calling. It’s a great starter for helpful and important discussions on calling. Here are some quotes andRead more…
Good Stuff: Good Deeds and Good News
Here’s a good read that reminds us of how good deeds and Good News go hand in hand. Serving/volunteering leads to opportunities to share the good news of Jesus . . . and to the growth of His kingdom. “TowardRead more…
Good Stuff: God’s bookkeeping = All Grace!
Do you set goals? Do you track your progress in reaching them? About 5 years ago, our senior pastor began working with staff who report to him create annual goals and regularly review progress on those goals. It’s been aRead more…
A Question: Where’s the Joy?
I’ve got a question. “Do you have any articles about serving with joy? I feel some of our teams around here are in a slump.” — from Carolyn at a church in Wisconsin Response Thanks for asking, Carolyn. It’s anRead more…
Good Stuff: All Work is Service
Serving goes way beyond just volunteering at church. Tim Keller wrote a great post on it: All Work is Service. What a difference it makes in my day when I remember this!
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