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Day of Learning June 19, 2013

A Day of Learning brings together grant recipients and community members to discuss, share, and worship together as well as to consider how disciplined creativity, theological integrity, and healthy leadership practices work together in the worship renewal process.

Article | Audio | June 28, 2013

Coop's Column - Self-Searching and Self-Denial: A Servant Spirit

In this series of meditations on the work of the Holy Spirit in believers’ lives, we are considering seven features about Christians which the English Puritan Christians said are Spirit-prompted and Spirit-endowed and which ought to mark the lives of those who aim to follow Jesus faithfully. Christians who do display these qualities are LUI, Living Under the Influence of the Spirit. This week we consider the fifth of these marks: “Strong self-searching and self-denial, a servant spirit.”

Reflection | June 24, 2013

Coop's Column - Longing to Delight and Honor God

In these meditations on the work of the Holy Spirit in believers’ lives, we are considering seven features about Christians which the English Puritan Christians said are Spirit-prompted and Spirit-endowed and which ought to mark the lives of those who aim to follow Jesus faithfully. Christians who do display these qualities are LUI, Living Under the Influence of the Spirit. This week we consider the fourth of these marks: “Deep Longing to Delight and Honor God.”

Reflection | June 17, 2013

Coop's Column - Worshipful Intimacy with Jesus Christ

In this series of meditations on the work of the Holy Spirit in believers’ lives, we are considering seven features about Christians which, said the English Puritan Christians, are Spirit-prompted and Spirit-endowed and which ought to mark the lives of those who aim to follow Jesus faithfully.

Reflection | June 10, 2013

Coop's Column - Eager desire to trust and obey the Bible, God’s Spirit-inspired Word

In this series of meditations on the work of the Holy Spirit in believers’ lives, we are considering seven features about Christians which English Puritan Christians said are Spirit-prompted and Spirit-endowed and which ought to mark the lives of those who aim to follow Jesus faithfully.

Reflection | June 03, 2013

Coop's Column - Vivid Awareness of the Greatness and Goodness of God

This week and in the weeks following we’ll focus on seven Christian character qualities, each of which the 17th-18th century English Puritan Christians claimed is Spirit-endowed and ought to mark faithful followers of Jesus. Serious Christians, said these Puritans, measure their spiritual progress by them. The first of these marks: “Vivid Awareness of the Greatness and Goodness of God.”

Reflection | May 29, 2013

Coop's Column - God present and active

Pentecost is a day for the church to loudly sings its thanks and praise.

Reflection | May 16, 2013

Coop's Column - Jesus Condemned and Crucified

Ibis ad crucem! You shall go to the cross! With these three words Pilate condemned Jesus to die by crucifixion. In this Lenten series we have been paying visits to several places where Jesus stopped as he with his disciples made his final journey to Jerusalem to die.

Reflection | March 25, 2013

Coop's Column - The Lord's Example, the Teacher's Command

Maundy Thursday. The name comes from the Latin, novum mandatum or “new commandment” and recalls the event of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet.

Reflection | March 25, 2013

Coop's Column - Royally Welcomed

It’s Passover festival in Jerusalem, the holiest season in the Jewish year. Thousands upon thousands of Jewish pilgrims have been travelling toward the Holy City to remember and celebrate God’s rescue of his people from long and heavy bondage in Egypt. As Jesus enters Jerusalem riding upon that lowly donkey, the mood of the thronging multitude turns deliriously jubilant. The people walk beside him as he rides, and laud him loudly as “King of the Jews.”

Reflection | March 21, 2013

Coop's Column - A Beautiful Gesture, A Fragrant Gift

In these Lenten meditations we have been paying a visit each week to a place where Jesus stopped as he with the disciples made his final journey toward Jerusalem. Our aim in doing this is to be attentive to our Savior as he makes his way toward his God-appointed destiny with suffering and death on the Cross for us. As his church, the Body he so much loves, we want to be present to him in his sufferings, and to show our love for him. We long to be close to Christ, for we cannot get enough of his presence.

Reflection | March 19, 2013

Coop's Column - As Alert As Possible

Lent is a six-week season in the Christian year that starts with Ash Wednesday, reaches peak intensity and agony on Good Friday and finishes with a crescendo of joy and triumph at Easter.

Reflection | February 15, 2013

Coop's Column - A Thankful People

Because life is a sheer gift from God, one we never deserved. The appropriate response, therefore, is to do two things: to take delight in the gift, to revel in and to savor it; and then, in response to bless the Giver with lavish thanks.

Reflection | November 19, 2012

Coop's Column - Pentecost

Pentecost Sunday is a day to celebrate, with full-throated thanksgiving and joy, Jesus' sending of his Holy Spirit. And, Pentecost Monday and the entire succession of days during Pentecost season, are a time of summons and challenge. Pentecost season is a time for the church to remind believers of their daily, lifelong call to bear witness to their Lord and to engage in his mission.

Reflection | May 25, 2012

Easter Sunday Christ’s Rising: Life Stronger than Death

“On the third day He arose again from the dead.” By these words in the Apostles Creed, Christians are declaring, forthrightly and unequivocally, a radical conviction, full of cosmic implications. He is stronger than death. His triumph over the grave ensures the defeat of any pretender to his authority and rule.

Reflection | April 08, 2012

Good Friday Christ's Cross: ‘Of First Importance‘

On some points of doctrine, honest Christians honestly disagree. On one point, however, all do agree: The cross lies at the very heart of the Christian message.

Reflection | April 06, 2012

Feet to Follow Jesus

Jesus, who willingly directed his feet to walk that difficult path of obedience marked out for him by his heavenly Father, endured heavy opposition from enemies as a result. Be clear, therefore: When Jesus bids a person to follow him, he doesn’t present the call as something of an attractive bargain.

Reflection | March 13, 2012