Reflections from Rick Lord on Leadership, Transformation, and Things That Keep Human Life Distinctively Human
Ash Wednesday comes as a diagnostic moment for those who choose to observe it. We remember our limits, our contingency, the shortness and uncertainty of human life: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). This is a hard truth, one that should help us live with greater engagement and [...]
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On this Sunday before Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent, we tell the story of Jesus with Peter, James, and John and their experience of transfiguration. On that mountaintop, the disciples are permitted a glimpse of God’s transcendent glory on the face of Jesus, and so are shown the point of it all. For [...]
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This past weekend, Tom Ehrich, a church wellness consultant and Director of Church Growth and Development at St. Bartholomew’s in New York, visited Holy Comforter for a series of meetings on the topic of “best practices” in congregational development. Tom was our preacher on Sunday, and his sermon moved me and many others deeply. Speaking [...]
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Snippets from part one of a three sermon series I’m offering at Church of the Holy Comforter in Vienna, Virginia. David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group, published a book in 2008 called “unChristian.” And in the book he outlines the results of a survey of some 400 young adults ages 16-29 “outside” of the [...]
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In his sermon at St. Mark’s pro-Cathedral in Alexandria, Egypt, where he is chairing the meeting of the Primates of the Anglican Communion, the Archbishop of Canterbury raised the issue of busyness in congregations today. Is prayer a substitute for activity, or an activity for which there is no substitute? From the sermon: Many years [...]
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One of the places where I find significant creative and prayerful expression is in my relationship to the classical guitar—and yes, it is a relationship. I’ve been passionate about the guitar since I first laid my hands on my father’s inexpensive “Hijos de Vicente Tatay” Spanish model he brought home after a summer of missionary [...]
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