I am at the annual conference for the Pastoral Leadership Institute (PLI). PLI is a virtual campus for teaching, equipping, inspiring, and training pastors for missional leadership. One key aspect of the PLI program is also the inclusion through the partner program of the pastors’ wives along side their husbands in much of the core…

Matthew 6:9-10 9  Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven,hallowed be your name.10 Your kingdom come,your will be done,on earth as it is in heaven. There is a recent move in the Christian/missional community to distinguish between the Kingdom of God and the local church. Those who seek to make this distinction make much over the antiquated,…

Matthew 6:9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. What if every time you are faced with a decision – moral, ethical, or otherwise – you sought to honor God’s name? What if every time you were ready to go to work you had in mind how you were going to…

Matthew 6:9 Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.   The book of Revelation has several beautiful songs of praise to the Lamb as the vision unfolds. Although the book as a whole is difficult and for some almost frightening, the message is clear: God is the only one who deserves…

Matthew 6:2, 5, 7 2  “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets… 5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. 7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do… There is little doubt…

Matthew 6:1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Jesus offers several ways in which we who follow him must not practice our faith. He calls us to a different religious practice than what one…

Matthew 6:5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. Some people are intimidated by the challenge of praying in public. They…

John 19:38-42 After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. 39 Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture…

Psalm 88:18 You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness. We were in a pit, a deep cellar in the basement of Caiaphas’ house in Jerusalem. We were told that Jesus would have been lowered into this pit through a hole in the ceiling, the only way into…

John 13:12-17 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 13  You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash…