The congregation doesn't need your coffee joke.
They buried someone this week.
They're sitting in pews with divorce papers in their glovebox.
Kids who won't speak to them.
Test results they haven't opened.
They drove past three churches to hear you say something that costs you something.
So open the Book.
Forget the illustration you found on Google.
Skip the movie clip.
Kill the countdown timer on your outline.
Preach like a man possessed.
Preach like you'll answer for every wasted syllable.
Preach like their blood is on your hands.
Because it is.
The pulpit isn't a stage.
@potatokmish@AnnieAgar So was Jesus! He never stopped being Jewish. He came to fulfill Torah and His love was first for the Jew and then the rest of the world. God loves you and so do I.
The repeated commands in the New Testament toward graceful, Christlike like speech were written by Apostles who preached the gospel in an environment far more hostile than ours and were later killed for it. Kindness isn’t conditioned by the season.
This new wave of deconstruction is not, as many religious leaders have suggested, something born of evil that must be denounced. The work of deconstruction is often born of the Spirit, a movement of God attempting to bring the church back to Jesus. #invisiblejesus
The central plank of women's rights is not abortion.
It's the cross.
In an empire built on might-is-right, forced prostitution, & discarding infants, Jesus validated women, babies & children as equal citizens in God's kingdom, & died to ransom any who would trust in Him.
What we do with our bodies, what we expose our minds to, and how we allow someone to take up space all play a role in the overall quality of our lives.