BLOG––Encouraged by Faith

A few months ago my newly nine-year-old leaned close to me during a quiet moment of Sunday morning worship. “Can I take communion?” He whispered in the way little boys do that can actually be louder than spoken words. I looked at him, faced with a decision to reflect on this request...

We are called to hospitality.  (I Peter 4:9; Hebrews 13:2; Matthew 25:31-46).  This includes not only our spiritual family but even strangers. How can we practice hospitality in the 21st century to strangers?  I suggest a minimal first step:  see...

How many times have you changed your mind about something? I don’t mean whether or not you would order dessert, but really altered your position on a weighty matter? If you have a particularly stubborn nature like I do, probably not often. Has your mind been changed suddenly, or was change...

“Paperwork, cleaning the house, dealing with the innumerable visitors who come all through the day, answering the phone, keeping patience and acting intelligently, which is to find some meaning in all that happens – these things, too, are the works of peace.” Dorothy...

In his letter to the Galatian church, the apostle Paul said; “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” Are you clothed in Christ? If so, your shame is covered up so that you are presentable to God. Your guilt and sin are no longer separating you from...

What does it mean to say, “I’m a Christian"? Who do you say it to? If someone else already knows you are a Christian, do you need to keep telling them? Isn’t that a kind of boasting? You know if you are a Christian or not. You do not need to keep telling yourself. Someone...

Disapproval is a default position programmed into personalities by lifelong practice. This is not love. It is not grace. It is unforgiving, unwilling to extend the saving grace of God to those in need of it. Disapproval is a modeled behavior. Friends and relatives influence young people by...

I watch hawks on a regular basis. There are Cooper’s hawks, sharp-shinned hawks and red-shouldered hawks in this area. By far the largest number of hawks I see, however, are the sturdy red-tailed hawks. At least two of them perch in a dying tree in a forested area at the edge of our...

(Dealing with Difficult People) Galatians 5:22-23 In horrible days that I now remember fondly, I worked in a stressful environment for a long time. My success was always uncertain. My competence was continually questioned, and not only by me. My job seemed perpetually tentative. Technically I...

I'm so proud of my son Scott Kenney for coming up with such a thoughtful communion meditation.  He delivered this on May 5, 2019, at East Side Church of Christ in Colorado Springs.   “Welcome to the Table of the Lord. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for...