words. faith. identity.
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Self love? Meh. (Really?)
It’s safe to say that Christianity has often been indifferent toward self-love. In fact, when I imagine the typically response to the possibility of self-love, I would describe it like this: Self love? Meh. Our own Reformed and Presbyterian tradition has often been downright negative about self-love. Within our tradition great emphasis has been placed…
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National Immigration Day?
My parents are immigrants to Canada. My mom and dad came to this country with their families, from the Netherlands, in 1951 and 1952 respectively. They know what it is to adapt to a new culture, to learn a new language, and to start over again making friends and family connections in a foreign country.…
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global music and worship
It seems that a truce has been called in the so-called worship wars. Or at least I seem to hear a lot less about such wars raging in the church today. Perhaps this lull in the fighting is because the church in the West has finally realized it has more important questions to answer than whether…
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love casts out fear – a sermon
No one has ever seen God. Maybe you remember that familiar story of Moses. Moses was someone who talked with God – Moses was someone who talked with God like God was a friend right there beside him. But even Moses never saw God. On one occasion Moses went as far as to ask God:…
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jesus and snap decisions
We make so many spur-of-the-moment decisions every day — decisions we can’t fully explain. Jesus makes a snap decision to call Simon and Andrew, James and John. They respond with a similar decision. But this isn’t the end, it’s just the beginning.
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habit-defying labour — thinking with the art of daisy tsai
Daisy Tsai describes her work, presently on display at Luz Gallery, Montreal, with these words: Painting is habit-defying labour… As our world dazzles, rushes, and burns, i peek-a-boo through forms and colours to contend for an alternative coherence, stillness verging on celebration and distress. The notion of habit is a powerful one, speaking as it…
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how big is your world?
How big is your world? You are an individual. And from your particular body – from your particular time and space – from your unique set of experiences – you look out onto the wider world. How big is your world? You are not the centre of the world (most of us know we are…
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Easter Kids’ Litany
A litany we will use this Sunday at Kensington, to be led by one of the kids of the congregation. This is a great day; a beautiful day. What makes it a great and beautiful day? This is the day of Jesus’ resurrection. What’s that you say? Tell us again! This is…
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examination for life – a visit from Jesus
Image you know someone who has always dreamed of visiting the Great Wall of China. It probably wouldn’t come as a surprise to hear that someone would want to visit the Great Wall. Parts of that wall were built as long as eighteen hundred years ago by the first emperor of China – most of…
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poem for palm sunday
PALM SUNDAY hymn Time-pressed sedimentary, igneous, metamorphic rocks Burst with anticipation that, human voices stayed, Their moment of unlocked eloquence and Soaring speech might finally arrive. But vocal chords reverberate with ancient choruses, Embodying praise for earth divinely imagined, given, Gathering sentiments of quartz, kingfisher and crocodile: Hosanna! King! Saviour! recoil Impossible words,…
Got any book recommendations?
encrusted words 