Mark 4: 26 He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. 27 Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. 28 All by itself the soil produces grain—first the...

This is a guided retreat that the Pastoral Leadership Team (Elders and Pastors) of Zion Mennonite Church recently did together. Out of the need to "nurture the nurturers," I drew it up, based on one of the books that has most nurtured me, Life of the Beloved, by an...

Genes 3: 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”  He answered, “I heard you...

To help your congregational delegates to the biennial delegate convention of MCUSA this summer, Joe Parker and Mathew Swora, with their discernment, and so that all might hear “what the Spirit is saying to the church” (Rev. 2:9), we solicit your most prayerful...

Now at this time Mary arose and went in a hurry to the hill country, to a city of Judah,  and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.  And...

Eph. 1: 20b…God raised Jesus from the dead and made him sit at his right hand in the heavenly places, 21 far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come; 22 and he has...

John 15: 9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that...

...the Ethiopian martyrs killed in Lybia this past weekend. On a Sunday morning in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in July, 2004, I attended a worship service in the Meserach Church of the Meserete Kristos denomination, the biggest partner denomination in Mennonite World...

I John 3: 1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed....

Mark 11: 12 On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry.13 Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for...