This past weekend, Thursday night through Sunday afternoon, I was involved with a men’s retreat. It was a great opportunity for me to do something a little different. I was on the leadership team and we had 33 first-time participants in the retreat. My job was to give one of the talks and then to [...]
Archive for the ‘Formation’ Category
Leading the Leader
Posted in Formation, Hope on February 14, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
That’s It? There’s Nothing More?
Posted in Formation, Grace, Hope on February 8, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Tonight we will begin a study on the book of Ecclesiastes. It is a book in the Old Testament attributed to King Solomon. Solomon was credited as the most wise person in the world. God had blessed him with an uncanny understanding of the world and how it works. That is why this book is [...]
Where Do You Put Your Faith?
Posted in Church, Community, Formation on February 7, 2012 | 2 Comments »
Last week I started the post on Tuesday as Tuesday Faith Check (you can link to that post here). In keeping with that idea, I have a question for you: Where do you put your faith? Here is what I mean by that question. Often times, with good intentions, we begin to put our faith [...]
The Simplicity of Grace
Posted in Formation, Grace, Hope on February 1, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Have you ever noticed that we have a real knack for making things more complicated than they need to be or than they really are? Often we get so pulled into the frenzy of things that we can’t look at an issue from the big picture view. William Wordsworth is one of my favorite Romantic [...]
How’s Your Faith?
Posted in Formation, Grace, Hope on January 31, 2012 | 3 Comments »
Time for a Tuesday Faith Check. The scripture for my time with God today was out of the book of Mark. It was the story of the woman who was healed of a hemorrhage that had plagued her for twelve years of her life. She heard that Jesus was going to be in her village and [...]
Fan It Back Into Flame
Posted in Formation, Grace, Hope on January 26, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Today, during my time of being present with God, I read the first chapter of 2 Timothy. As I read, Paul’s words reminded me of something we all need from time to time. He assured Timothy that he believed Timothy possessed strong faith. He shared that he had seen this faith in Timothy’s grandmother and [...]
Come Awake
Posted in Formation, Grace, Hope on January 24, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
One of my favorite current praise songs is Come Awake. When I sing this song, I am reminded how easily I doze off to what God is doing all around me. I become so distracted by the busyness of my life – doing good things – that I become numb to God’s activity, and even [...]
What Would the World Be Like If . . .?
Posted in Community, Formation, Hope on January 23, 2012 | 2 Comments »
In preparing for our devotional time last night, I ran across a quote from Lion and Lamb, by Brennan Manning. He said, What distinguishes the Christians whose faith is deep, burning, powerful, and luminous is . . . seriousness. Seriousness is not the opposite of joy but of superficiality. He then went on to use [...]
What If Jesus Were Our Only Focus?
Posted in Formation, Hope on January 19, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Today’s Pray-As-You-Go Jesuit podcast reading was out of the Gospel of Mark. It was the account of Jesus having to get into a boat and push out into the water so that he could speak. We are told that people were coming from every region to see and hear him. In this particular account, there [...]
Who Has Your Heart?
Posted in Formation, Hope on January 18, 2012 | 1 Comment »
Who has your heart? Obviously, your literal heart is beating inside your chest. But what about the center of your being? When the Bible talks about the heart, it is referring to the deepest part of you – that part of you that only you and God truly knows (and by the way, God knows [...]


