1. This is an excerpt from part two of “On Any Given Sunday: The Story of Christ in the Divine Service” by Mike Berg (1517 Publishing, 2023).
  2. If it’s all a fiction spun by disappointed disciples, if it’s a mere symbol for the idea of an inner awakening, if it’s not a fact that Christ has been raised, then our grief and loss have no end, and we have no hope.
  3. This is an excerpt from the prologue of “On Any Given Sunday: The Story of Christ in the Divine Service” by Mike Berg (1517 Publishing, 2023).
  4. We don't make Church "happen." Only Christ can do so. It's his happening.
  5. I hate to break it to you, but "are" is not an action verb. "Are" is a being verb.
  6. This is the message of Lent. We are not called to sacrifice for Jesus in order to earn our salvation. Rather, we are called to remember the sacrifice that Jesus made for us.
  7. Even if the numbers are bad, the news about Jesus crucified for sinners and raised to new life hasn’t become any less good.
  8. There is a revival, no less real and even more definitive, taking place in every church, every weekend, where God’s people gather around his gifts.
  9. We too are God’s baptized, beloved, blood-bought believers. And no one can ever take that away from us.
  10. Hidden beneath the sinner is a glorious saint. Jesus has declared it to be so in your baptism.
  11. The sign of the cross, according to the earliest centuries of Christians, is “the sign of the Lord,” and every baptized Christian was “marked” with it.
  12. In Memory of My Friend, James Arne Nestingen