Spiritual Formation

Music without rhythm is chaotic—unsettling, jarring, and hard to follow. In many ways, our lives can feel the same: full of activity but lacking flow, balance, or peace. Jesus offers a different way. “Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life….Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace….” (MSG)

George Whitefield once infamously stated: "I am no great Friend to long Sermons, long Prayers, or long Hymns. - They are generally weary instead of edifying, and therefore I think should be avoided by those who preside in the public Worshipping Assembly."* Sadly, we can all, at times, find the church gathering more of a drain than a time of refreshment - and, of course, this can have just as much do to with our own expectations of church as it has with the quality of the serm

Mark Ashton-Smith, a thirty-three year old lecturer at Cambridge University, capsized in some treacherous water while he was kayaking off the Isle of Wight in England. As he clung to his craft, his first instinct was to call his dad. At once his father relayed his son’s call for help to the Coast Guard who had an installation less than a mile from his son’s accident. Within twelve minutes a helicopter rescued Ashton-Smith. When you are in serious danger, is your first impulse

The importance and value of prayer can never be overemphasized. It is one of the critical habits of highly effective Christians and leaders of influence. While prayer can easily be reduced to an activity of a believer talking to God, it should be understood as a conversation and dialogue between God and a believer. It is a covenantal communion between God and a believer. At its best, prayer is a climax of one’s walk with God similar to the journey a husband and wife commit to

I spend an embarrassing amount of time thinking about cooking. It was baking that first hooked me when I was a kid – the endless, delicious things that could be created by the simple act of creaming butter and folding flour. It was like magic. At first it was the sweet stuff, but as I grew into an adult the necessity of putting meals on the table introduced me to the wonders of savoury cooking. Now I can’t help but daydream and plan and sometimes even obsess over the new and

Writing laments wasn’t something I had consciously done before. But I have kept a journal in the past to share my thoughts with God. It has always been a very honest and transparent time with Him. During one of the sessions of Journeying Through Grief, we were introduced to a model for writing our own lament. I did what I had done before: I poured my heart out to God in writing. I told Him about some difficult things I didn’t understand. I asked Him questions I had kept insid

We can't go far in life without experiencing the impact of suffering and loss. Although we wish we were exempt, none of us are. For over a year now, the pandemic has thrown us into a swirl of chaos. We've experienced uncertainty, change, and loss, leading us to grieve what we once had, and even the expectation of how our lives would look. For me, I’ve had to let go of some of my hopes of what my newly adopted daughter, Gianna, would experience during her second year of life.

Recently I found myself sitting in my car, feeling very sorry for myself as it was being towed down the highway. Lately, a lot of things had been breaking down, and this particular day seemed to be going from bad to worse. As I thought back over the previous two days, however, I had the sudden realization that there could have been another outcome. There were, in fact, a few warning signs, or at least opportunities for other choices that would have helped me avoid the expensi