When a congregation is abused by its pastor, it loses more than a shepherd. It loses its threshold place; that fragile seam between earth and heaven.
We can lay down our sledgehammers of moralistic performance, which aren’t effective anyway, and we can trust that we are his and his life is ours.
Faith takes God at his word and holds his promise to be true for me because I know God would not lie to me.

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Evangelism is hard work requiring lots of patience. Churches and mission boards are often too impatient and want to see numerical growth explode overnight.
God leads us to the refuge that’s more secure and safe than any man-made thing, more than anything we own, more than anything that owns us.
When we come to God with our faithful obedience to make a case for our just cause, we expect to hear his deliverance in the form of a "yes."
People are searching for connection, direction, and hope in a troubled world, and we can use their star-shaped questions to point them to the shape of the cross.
Jesus is the vine. You are His branches. And God the Father delights to bring the inside out.
Now, if there were another way to heaven, doubtless, he would have made it known to us.
For those of us who recognize the disciples’ despair in ourselves, Jesus comes with the same word: “Relax, it’s me. Peace be with you.”
This is an excerpt from the introduction of Ragged: Spiritual Disciplines for the Spiritually Exhausted written by Gretchen Ronnevik (1517 Publishing, 2021). Now available for preorder.
He continues to gather other sheep in, and He does it through the selfless serving and the gracious speaking of His people.
The result of this day’s proceedings, in Luther’s mind, was likely to be a painful death at the stake.
Jesus rejects what we believe is most necessary and instead points us to his pain, suffering, death, and self-sacrifice.
After more than a year of facing our collective mortality as a species, the promise of a physical resurrection is welcome news.