Posted by dwhetter |
According to the gospel of Matthew, Jesus began his ministry immediately following John the Baptist’s arrest and from the beginning Jesus proclaimed, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17). From the beginning, Jesus’ ministry was about sharing with the world the need for the people to repent, that is change their ways to God’s ways because God’s kingdom…
Dear Salem Family,
Community is messy. Being in relationship with people is messy. Loving others is messy. If I’ve learned anything from my therapeutic background, and my many jobs of working with people, is that we are messy beings. There isn’t a stock way of dealing with people. We need to get to know people and seek to understand others as we interact with them. There is a clear correlation…
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Over the past week I had the privilege to journey with 105 students and adult leaders from five congregations on a mystery mission trip. Our mission brought us to the…
Posted by dwhetter |
As our story begins today, Jesus is sitting on the shore of the Sea of Galilee just outside of the town of Capernaum and large crowds are gathering to listen to him. In fact, the crowd got so large that Jesus had to get in a boat to speak while the crowd filled the shore. Jesus was trying to explain about the kingdom of heaven, a complex notion, and so like any good teacher he began using different…
Posted by hlewis |
I am not a gardener. I have memories of my parents’ beautiful vegetable garden, eating snow peas off the vine and dripping in strawberry juice, and my brother’s height being compared to huge zucchinis. I thoroughly enjoy others’ landscaping and flowers, but if a plant needs much tending, you probably won’t find it in my yard — I am excited to just be able to grow grass.
This…
Posted by dwhetter |
Compared to the past several weeks, as our gospel story begins today, everything has changed. Jesus has finished instructing the twelve disciples (Matthew 11:1) and he has now moved on. He is traveling around again to various cities and towns, proclaiming his message of repentance, for “the kingdom of God has come near” (Matthew 4:17). While Jesus continued on, John, while in prison,…
As you most likely know, this year we are commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Legend proclaims that, on October 31, 1517, a young German monk by the name of Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of All Saints Church in Wittenberg, Germany. These theses, or statements, were actually a list of 95 propositions that Luther wished to debate to help reform…
Posted by dwhetter |
For the past several weeks we have been listening to Jesus provide his disciples instructions on what it will take to be a disciple. He began this time of teaching because he had commissioned the twelve disciples to go out and do the work he had been doing; he empowered them to cure the sick and drive out evil spirits. He provided them warnings of the persecutions and trials that would follow,…