What I was missing—what so many are missing—is a Church that doesn’t just speak about Christ, but delivers him.
Though several generations removed from Luther’s generation, Francke came of age right on time for a new wave of spirituality to collide with the Reformation in the movement known as Pietism.
Every time someone is baptized, every time bread is broken and wine poured, every time a sinner hears, “Your sins are forgiven in Christ,” Pentecost happens again.

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Our faith is not a mountain but a grain of sand, not pure gold but gilded plaster. And all it takes is a few nicks and scratches to reveal its shallowness.
Grace is easier to tweet about than extend. When we are talking about my sin and the impact it has on others, I want grace.
What is really good for the soul is not so much confession as absolution. If confession is us telling the truth about ourselves to God, then absolution is God telling us a truer truth about ourselves.
By Philip Melanchthon (from the 1535 Loci Communes), translated by Scott L. Keith, Ph.D.
When God is at work, oftentimes the best activity is non-activity, the best speech is non-speech. Sometimes God wants us to shut up.
Believe in God, belong to a church, and behave yourself isn’t the Gospel.
If April 1 is April Fools’ Day, then March 25 is Divine Fool’s Day. Falling nine months before Christmas, it’s the day when God set in motion what appeared to be a foolish plan.
As it turned out, the novels in which I had sought escape, became part of the means whereby the Lord rescued me from my own death.
She’s clad only in a white, wet, silk blouse, as if just caught in a downpour. Her back is slightly turned toward the camera, the curves of hip and breast beckoning the onlooker.
When you see a cross, you see the smile of your Father. He’s not mad at you. He’s overjoyed that you’re his daughter.
As with so many things, regret can begin as something natural, even beneficial, as you struggle to recover from a wound in your past. But over time, regret can devolve from a sadness to a sickness.
There are so many reasons why the Good News is such good news; but, for me, one near the top of the list is the relief of being able to tell the truth. It is so refreshing to be given permission to ‘call a spade a spade.