Archive for 2013
Christmastide: From Waiting to Wonder
Lectionary Readings for Christmas Eve: Isaiah 9:2-7, Psalm 96, Titus 2:11-14, Luke 2:1-14 (15-20) for Christmas Day: Isaiah 52:7-10, Psalm 98, Hebrews 1:1-4 (5-12), John 1:1-14 Advent Calendar (Cycle A) and guidance for using the lectionary “How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given.”—O Little Town of Bethlehem Christmas Eve marks the end of Advent…
Read MoreAdvent 4: Joseph And The Walk Of Faith
Lectionary Readings for December 22, 2013: Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7,17-19; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25 Advent Calendar (Cycle A) and guidance for using the lectionary “Sooner or later, if we follow Christ we have to risk everything in order to gain everything. We have to gamble on the invisible and risk all that we see and…
Read MoreIs this all there is?
IS THIS ALL THERE IS? This question unsettles us when it bubbles up inside us, especially when we ask it at church! In an online article written for Christianity Today entitled, “Is This All There Is?,” Fritz Liedtke dares to explore the question that makes church leaders squirm. Liedtke is not ungrateful for his faith…
Read MoreAdvent 3: Gifts In The Wilderness
Lectionary Readings for December 15, 2013: Isaiah 35:1-10; Psalm 146:5-10; James 5:7-10; Matthew 11:2-11 Advent Calendar (Cycle A) and guidance for using the lectionary “The desert of which I speak is a desert of the spirit: a place of revelation, conversion, and transformation… It involves being ‘made over’, being made new, being ‘born again’… In…
Read MoreAdvent 2: Joyful Preparations
If you are joining us for week 2, you might want to also access other eReflections in this Advent series: Read Advent 1—The Importance of Waking up Lectionary readings for Dec 08, 2013: Is 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-7, 18-19; Rom 15:4-13; Matt 3:1-12 Click for complete Advent calendar (Cycle A) and guidance on using the lectionary. “Our spiritual life depends…
Read MoreAdvent 1: The Importance of Waking Up
Lectionary readings for Dec 01, 2013. Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122; Rom 13:11-14; Matt 24:36-44 Click for complete Advent calendar (Cycle A) and guidance on using the lectionary. “God comes to us like the sun in the morning—when it is time.”—Carlo Carretto, The God Who Comes My favorite time of any day is the pre-dawn moments before the…
Read MoreA Different Kind of Calendar
“When we submit our lives to what we read in Scripture, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but our stories in God’s. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.” – Eugene Peterson I can still remember the first time I heard…
Read MoreSabbath in Late Fall
For everything there is a season… Sometimes on the Sabbath all you can do is settle into the soft body of yourself and listen to what it says. Listen to the exhaustion that is deeper than tiredness the hunger that is for more than food the thirst that is for more than drink the longing…
Read MoreYou Say You Don’t Have Time for Retreat? Think Again!
When there is no time to do it, that’s when you most need to unclutter the calendar and go apart to pray. When the gridlock in your schedule relentlessly forbids it is the time you most need retreat. That is when your heart beats against the prison walls of your enslavement and says, “Yes, Lord,…
Read MoreTransforming Center welcomes David Hughes as Executive Director
The Transforming Center is excited to announce that as of October 1, Rev. Dr. David Hughes has joined our team as full-time Executive Director! David’s commitment to the Transforming Center and his conviction about the significance of this ministry is deep and longstanding. He says, “I am convinced the Transforming Center is at the forefront…
Read MorePart 5: Leading in Rhythm: Discerning and Doing the Will of God
If you are joining us for Part 5, you might want to also access other eReflections in this series, Leading in Rhythm: • Part 1—Beyond the Bondage of Busyness • Part 2—Rhythms of Work and Rest • Part 3—Solitude and Community • Part 4—Three Moves in Self-Examination “Spiritual leadership springs forth in grace from our very…
Read MorePart 4 Leading in Rhythm: Three Moves in Self-Examination
“A leader is a person who must take special responsibility for what’s going on inside him- or herself, inside his or her consciousness, lest the act of leadership create more harm than good.” —Parker Palmer There comes a time in the spiritual life when one of the major things God is up to is to…
Read MorePart 3 Leading in Rhythm: Solitude and Community
“Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. He will only do harm to himself and to the community…But the reverse is also true: let him who is not in community beware of being alone.” –Dietrich Bonhoeffer In this paradoxical statement from his book Life Together, German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer articulates one of the…
Read MorePursuing God’s Will Together: Review from the Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care
Kent Carlson, Co-Senior Pastor of Oak Hills Church (Folsom, CA), reviews Pursuing God’s Will Together: A Discernment Practice for Leadership Groups, by Ruth Haley Barton (InterVarsity Press, 2012) Ruth Haley Barton, in her book, Pursuing God’s Will Together, has presented a vision of a spiritual leadership community that if taken seriously, would drastically and in severe…
Read MoreDune grass, pastors, and stability in the harsh conditions of today’s church and society
As we officially enter into the summer months, many of us start thinking about a trip to the beach! Having recently returned from a week on the shores of Lake Michigan, I am reminded once again of the beauty and environmental significance of dune grass. The Significance of Dune Grass Dune grass performs an essential function.…
Read MorePart 2 Leading in Rhythm: Rhythms of Work and Rest
“A Sabbath rest still remains for the people of God…Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest.” —Hebrews 4:9,11 Sabbath-keeping is more than just a day of rest; it is a way of ordering one’s entire life around a pattern of working six days and then resting on the seventh. It is an…
Read MorePart 1 Leading in Rhythm: Beyond the Bondage of Busyness
“We are blessed with inner rhythms that tell us where we are, and where we are going. No matter, then, our fifty and sixty hour work weeks, the refusing to stop for lunch, the bypassing sleep and working deep into the darkness. If we stop, if we return to rest, our natural state reasserts itself.…
Read MoreIn Honor of Dallas Willard: Why Bother with Discipleship?
Early yesterday morning Dallas Willard, beloved teacher, philosophy professor, author and spiritual formation guide lost his battle with stage four cancer and entered into the full experience of transformation in Christ’s presence. There is no doubt that Dallas’ passing is a great loss for us and great gain for him. Through the years when people…
Read MoreRuth Haley Barton Signs Six-Book Contract with InterVarsity Press
Krista Carnet | 630.734.4013 | kkcarnet@ivpress.com WESTMONT, IL—Award-winning author Ruth Haley Barton has signed a six-book contract with InterVarsity Press. Barton, president of The Transforming Center, a spiritual formation ministry to pastors and Christian leaders, will release Invitation to Transforming Community, the first of six books in the Transforming Church series, in Fall 2014. “I…
Read MoreSpiritual Direction with Pastoral and Corporate Leaders
“A spiritual director is one who helps another to recognize and to follow the inspirations of grace in his life, in order to arrive at the end to which God is leading him.” —Thomas Merton It was almost twenty years ago now when, as a young leader, I crept into a spiritual director’s office…
Read MoreHe is Risen! Hallelujah!
Resurrection of the Lord Acts 10:34-43 OR Isaiah 65:17-25; Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24; 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 or Acts 10:34-43; John 20:1-18 or Luke 24:1-12 Song of Praise Psalm 118 Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; His steadfast love endures forever! The Lord is my strength and my song; and he has become…
Read MoreMaundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday: A Prayer for Entering into these Holy Days
Maundy Thursday Exodus 12:1-4, (5-10), 11-14; Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; John 13:1-17, 31b-35 Good Friday Isaiah 52:13-53:12; Psalm 22; Hebrews 10:16-25 or Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9; John 18:1-19:42 Holy Saturday Job 14:1-14 OR Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24; Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16; 1 Peter 4:1-8; Matthew 27:57-66 or John 19:38-42 “Stay together, friends, don’t scatter and sleep. …
Read MoreWeek 6 An Invitation to Walk with Christ
Sixth Sunday in Lent Liturgy of the Palms: Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Luke 19:28-40 Liturgy of the Passion: Isaiah 50:4-9a, Psalm 31:9-16, Philippians 2:5-11, Luke 22:14-23:56 or Luke 23:1-49 “The whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is…
Read MoreWeek 5 Suffering: Dying That We Might Live
Lectionary Readings for Fifth Sunday in Lent Isaiah 43:16-21, Psalm 126, Philippians 3:4b-14, John 12:1-8 “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” …
Read MoreWeek 4 Confession: Leaders in Lent
Lectionary Readings for Fourth Sunday in Lent Joshua 5:9-12, Psalm 32, 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 “Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord…’” Psalm 32:5 I have many big dreams, but there is one dream I have…
Read MoreWeek 3 Repentance: Cleaning Our Messy House
Lectionary Readings for Third Sunday in Lent Isaiah 55:1-9; Psalm 63:1-8; 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Luke 13:1-9 Seek the Lord while he may be found, call upon him while he is near; let us return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on us, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. Isaiah 55:6-7…
Read MoreWeek 2 Self Denial: Setting Our Minds on Things Above
Lectionary readings for Second Sunday in Lent (Cycle C) Genesis 15:1-12, 17-28; Psalm 27, Philippians 3:17-4:1a; Luke 13:31-35 Come my heart says, “Seek his face!” Your face, Lord, do I seek. —Psalm 27:8 Most years I don’t feel quite ready for Lent with all its demands and disciplines—especially the call to self-denial and fasting. I…
Read MoreWeek 1: Crossing the Threshold into Lent
Scripture for First Sunday in Lent: Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Romans 10:8b-13; Luke 4:1-13 The season of Lent derives its structure and its themes from Christ’s forty days in the wilderness, where he fasted, prayed and faced Satan’s temptations. This was not punishment; in fact he had just experienced God’s public affirmation of his true identity as “my Son,…
Read MoreLent: A Season of Returning
Scripture for Ash Wednesday: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17; Psalm 51:1-17; II Corinthians 5:20-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 “‘And yet even now,’ says the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart . . .’” —Joel 2:12 Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Church’s observance of the Lenten season—six weeks set apart for the purpose of drawing…
Read MorePursuing God’s Will Together Chosen for 2012 Leadership Book Award
Pursuing God’s Will Together: A Discernment Practice for Leadership Groups (InterVarsity Press/Formatio) by Ruth Haley Barton was chosen for a 2012 Leadership Book Award in the category of “The Leader’s Outer Life.” Leadership Journal editors and contributing editors narrowed the awarded titles down to the ten “books that are too good to miss.” In Pursing God’s Will…
Read MoreProphets of a Future Not Our Own
“I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the Promised Land!” —Martin Luther King, Jr. Is it possible for a leader to have encountered God so richly that no matter what we are working toward here on this earth, we know…
Read MoreEpiphany: A Dangerous Journey
Lectionary readings: Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-7, 10-14; Ephesians 3:1-12; Matthew 2:1-12 Lectionary Calendar (Cycle C) and guidance for using the lectionary This Sunday officially marks the end of the Christmas season and the beginning of the season of Epiphany—the “showing forth” or “the revelation” of God’s presence to unlikely people in unlikely places. On this…
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