The Real Church Pandemic is Nostalgia
Nostalgia is a looter who impoverishes us of the truth that God is in our midst right now.
Contributors
Bruce Hillman
Bruce Hillman is Lead Pastor at Hillside Lutheran Brethren Church in Succasunna New Jersey. He Holds a BA in History and Political Science from Quinnipiac University, an MDiv. from the Lutheran Brethren Seminary, and an STM in Patristics from Drew University; his research involves Augustinian studies and Early Christianity. He is co-founder of Fifth Act Church Planting, having served on their board.
Most Recent
Mountaintop Words
God is not what we experience him to be, what our emotions narrate him to be, or what our intuition thinks he might be. God is what and who he says he is.
The First Love of God
Sometimes we make the mistake of thinking God's love is like the love we experience in human relationships. But human love is a derivative of God's love. It is lesser.
Inspiration from Mr. Rogers about Coping with a Pandemic
Fred Rogers did not teach children how to live through a pandemic, but he had many profound things to say about loving our neighbors and finding our identity in that calling.
Is Jesus the Only Way?
To the extent that God is exclusive by offering salvation only through Christ we can say he is more gracious than other systems because he takes on our guilt upon himself while gifting us his righteousness.
Fruitful Solitude: Thoughts About Loneliness During the Holidays
The way through loneliness will lie in the blessing of solitude and the care of God.
What are “Facts” and What is Truth?
Freedom is the opposite of woe-dom. We must remind ourselves and teach our children that God's voice is the voice that matters.
God’s Coloring Book: Mr. Sketch, Drunken Sailors, and All Things New
God is coloring over your sin and making you fragrant; he is making you righteous in his sight. The old is gone, forever covered over by this new work.
Why Do You Expect So Little of God?
When we forget that we live by promise, that's when the danger tends to creep in. Because failing to embrace promise means we usually fall back into notions of luck, or even worse--into works.
A Reminder in Humility
As we face our own struggles and successes, let us pray that we may be humble. Let us be grateful for whatever God has provided and not become arrogant in what we have or what we've lost.
All the Suffering, Evil, and Pain in the World Comes Down to Love
Sin is driven by disordered love, and it is love in this sense that leads to all the pain and suffering in the world.
You Can’t Work For Peace
Because peace is a gift and not a product, you can’t work your way into it. However—you can receive it by grace.
Daring to Pray for the Impossible
Prayer dares to call the impossible into reality. It trusts the One who can do all things to do impossible things. It rests its hope on God’s power and not man’s agency.
It is Better to Not See
Miracles, for all their wonder and encouragement, rely on the dazzling of our senses to work. Because miracle-faith produces sensory-faith, it is of a poor quality.
When God Lets You Down After You Tried So Hard
There is often no way forward for us without the prophetic lament, because such laments force out our honesty and resentment at the God who does not treat us as we expect to be treated.
God, I’m Mad At You
When we are hurt, we cry out to God. But sometimes when the hurt gets really intense, our lament turns to complaint. Not only is this normal, but almost every lament in scripture contains a complaint.
Thoughts on Silence and Change
Silence is an important and valuable tool for change and empathy, self-reflection, and learning.
Fortress God
God will keep his promises, but how he keeps them is often quite surprising.
Anxious, Fearful, and Righteous
How we feel is so often conditioned upon what we are experiencing. Faith grabs hold of something outside our experience, something objective and true that is not changed by circumstance.
Will God Forgive Me… Again?
We must put away a whitewashed Christianity that says that God simply forgives because He is nice, kind, loving, gentle, etc. That is not how forgiveness works.
No, People are Not Totally Evil
The view of Total Depravity as it is usually understood by outsiders (and even many insiders), is often misunderstood. Despite appearances to the contrary, Total Depravity does not mean totally evil.
A Helmet of Promises
What I have come to see is that while anyone can make a conscious decision to walk away from God or deny him, a person can’t accidentally lose his or her salvation.
The Worst Prayer to Pray: The Third Petition of the Lord's Prayer
When we pray, “Thy will be done,” we are praying a cosmic, grand and mighty prayer.
The Suicide Prophet
Sometimes we have to strain hard to hear words deeper than our hearts. Words not from inside, but outside. Words from God, not our own self-spun narratives.
The Baptism that Swallowed the Rocks
The Church gathers around the Word and Sacrament in order to receive Christ and each other.
Featured Resources
The Sinner/Saint Devotional: 60 Days in the Psalms
There is a Psalm for just about everything. Defeated? It’s there. Joyful? That is there too. Angry with God? There are a lot of Psalms for that. Some of them give us great comfort, and some of them make us…