1. 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).
  2. We don't make Church "happen." Only Christ can do so. It's his happening.
  3. I hate to break it to you, but "are" is not an action verb. "Are" is a being verb.
  4. I can guarantee you that when Paul was overtaken by the Spirit and inspired to write these words, he did not have in mind your local school's boys' basketball tournament.
  5. Even if the numbers are bad, the news about Jesus crucified for sinners and raised to new life hasn’t become any less good.
  6. 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.
  7. We too are God’s baptized, beloved, blood-bought believers. And no one can ever take that away from us.
  8. Hidden beneath the sinner is a glorious saint. Jesus has declared it to be so in your baptism.
  9. Forty days after giving birth, Mary, along with her husband Joseph, presented their firstborn Son at the temple and "bought" him back with a sacrifice of two small birds. This is known as the "Presentation of Our Lord."
  10. 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.
  11. Toy Story is indeed a Christmas story.
  12. Despite our best efforts to avoid him, King Jesus remains very much unavoidable.