Designed for congregational, family and individual use, the 2018 Presbyterians Today Lenten devotional is available in English, Spanish, Korean, Taiwanese, Chinese and Indonesian language versions.
Lent is a great time to focus more fully on our spiritual lives. For centuries, the church has encouraged us to give up something that brings us pleasure, so that we can be more in touch with Jesus’ self-denial. More recently, Christians have taken on new spiritual practices such as practicing intentional hospitality or reading the Scriptures more faithfully as a way of prioritizing God’s ways over our ways.
I walked away from the church at age 15. I wasn’t unique. Many teens walk away from the church, although it’s more common today than when I did it in the mid-1970s. No matter what the year, teens walk away from church for many reasons — spiritual laziness, lack of inspiration from worship services, worldly distractions, peer pressure (it’s not cool to go to church), the attraction of other beliefs (including agnosticism and atheism). But I walked away for reasons that were a bit different from those of many of my friends.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. — Matthew 22:37–40. This message is recited over and over among people of faith, whether they are Jews, Muslims or Christians. The words are unambiguous in their call for us to deal with others within the human family in ways that we ourselves would like to be treated.
Why do we so often misunderstand our spirituality? As Presbyterians, we tend to live in our heads as if our bodies were disconnected from our intellectual faith. Our worship is mostly related to what we think and less on how we move. For example, if we see someone dancing in our worship service, we tend to see it as an improper way of worshiping God. I am not advocating for irrationality but rather, to have us think as well as feel, dance, smell, taste and touch, as ways of developing our spirituality.
몸과 마음의 재결합 클라우디오 카르발에스 | Presbyterian Today 이 기사는 2018년 2월/3월호 Presbyterians Today에서 발췌 한 것이다. 왜 우리는 종종 우리의 영성을 오해합니까? 장로교인으로서, 우리는 우리의 육체가 우리의 지적 믿음과… Read more »
I was sent to the home shortly after the death to comfort a family I had never met. The case sheet read: young, male, black, single, Baptist, terminal cancer. • Me enviaron a la casa poco después de la muerte para consolar a una familia que yo no conocía. La ficha de datos decía: joven, hombre, negro, soltero, bautista, cáncer terminal.
War has a human face. Every shadow, every line, every wrinkle is part of the story. In a recent visit to South Korea, a PC(USA) peace delegation witnessed firsthand the human face of war. The delegation visited the War & Women’s Human Rights Museum. There they watched video interviews with “comfort women” — women kidnapped or lured by the promise of jobs and forced into sexual slavery in what were known as “comfort stations” for Japanese soldiers during World War II. The women in the video spoke no English. There were English subtitles to help translate. The subtitles, though, weren’t necessary. The women’s faces said it all.
Sports encroaching on Sunday worship. Controversies over kneeling versus standing for the national anthem at football games. Praying before the big game. Americans are passionate about sports. But where does faith come into play on the playing field and in the pew?
