Rich reflects on America's two months of "feasting festivals" at the end of every year-- Thanksgiving and Christmas vacations, celebrations, and feasts with family and friends. But how or when did it all begin?
reflections
Becoming Little Christs
With the changing of the seasons, we now turn our attention from summer to early autumn activities. But something big happened in October 502 years ago that we should also celebrate-- a watershed moment in world history, second only to the coming of Christ into the world 2020 years ago. What is Rich talking about?
A Place at the Table
Back in 2012, there was a movie made about hunger in America narrated by Jeff Bridges. It was called A Place at the Table. Rich's reflection this month is about a different kind of hunger and a different kind of table, but a table, nonetheless. Rich ties together one of the Beatitudes, Grace, and Jesus' Parable of the Great Banquet. And gives us food for thought, as always.
Cleanliness and Godliness
“Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” Many of us have heard this saying before, probably from the mouth of our mother or grandmother. But where did it come from and what does it mean?
Learning How to be Free
This Fourth of July, we as a nation celebrate our 243rd year of declaring our freedom from Great Britain. On June 9 we as a Christian church celebrated over 2000 years of another kind of freedom, freedom from sin in the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (see II Cor. 3:17). The Apostle Paul said, “you have been set free from sin. . .” (Romans 6: 18). So how is this possible? Rich thinks that perhaps we first have to understand what freedom is and isn’t.