Advent 3: As John the Baptist is teaching about bearing good fruit, the crowds, tax collectors, and soldiers ask him, “What, then, should we do?” His answer to each group is slightly different, but ultimately the same: “Do the good that is yours to do.” We can each bear good fruit through acts of justice and righteousness. We can all be what Isaiah calls “repairers of the breach” by satisfying the needs of the afflicted.

Advent 2: One of life’s most essential lessons is that we are never meant to go alone. And yet, modern culture pushes us more and more into lonely silos. If Ruth had followed her culture’s norms, she would have gone home to her family of origin after her husband died, but instead, she commits herself to her mother-in-law, Naomi. Together they form a new family and covenant. Ruth and Naomi travel together to Bethlehem at the beginning of the barley harvest, foreshadowing the journey Mary and Joseph will one day take to becounted in the census. Both Ruth and Naomi as well as Mary and Joseph are unconventional pairs, but if God can bring unlikely people together, God can form us into a covenant community too.

Advent 1: The Advent journey unfolds like a well-worn quilt, each patchwork piece lovingly threaded across time and space. In each thread, we find blessed assurance that with every sacred stitch, God has been moving toward us all along. This season reminds us that, what some may see as discarded scraps, the Maker of heaven and earth calls beautiful and blessed. Mary, an ordinary girl from the obscure corners of Nazareth, was not cloaked in power or prestige—but was blanketed in belovedness.

Every parent knows that their kids are going to ask questions. They just pray that the questions are ones they can answer. Jesus was asked a question that he didn’t answer. But he had already challenged his interrogator as to whether he “belonged to the truth.” What did he mean?

In football they measure the forward progress of a team by using the "sticks" that measures 10 yards for a first down. How do we measure our progress in our faith?

All around the world every day there are earthquakes. Some we feel some we don't. But it is the faith quakes of life that cause us to have little faith in the midst of struggle and stress. How do we handle those times the shaking of our faith.

To being fully Wesleyan in terms of our financial stweradship , we need to earn all we can, save all we can and give all we can.

With so much data on our smartphones, or available via our smartphones, it’s no wonder that we’re constantly checking the phone. But the techy programs to which we’re attached and which provide so much information and knowledge, cannot be more important than the visible world around us that provides so much data and knowledge about the Creator who made everything possible. Think about it: We are in touch with the One who made all … this … happen!

What can we do when we’re not happy with God? Navigating darkness can be difficult, whether it’s driving down a country road in the middle of the night or getting through a dark night of the soul. Job might have jumped at the chance to try a pair of modern night vision goggles to help him find God, but what we all need is faith when God cannot be seen.

New NCAA rules are turning kids into instant millionaires. College-level and professional athletes are receiving enormous compensation for their NIL: name, image and likeness. Using this same rubric, how might we assess the work of Jesus Christ?