A Liturgy for Community

I liked this one so much I decided to borrow it for my own blog post. It’s by Douglas McKelvey and it’s for those who are seeking biblical community. I’ve been learning recently that there’s a reason why there are no Lone Ranger Christians in the Bible. We were designed and created for community. We’re better together. So here’s the post (with a link to the actual liturgy at the end):

"Good Father Who Gives Good Gifts
to His Children,

Like Abraham, in a step of faith
I have journeyed from the comforting
sameness of all I once knew—my family
and home, my friends, my neighborhood,
my church, my old school, my settled
rhythms and routines.

I have moved far from all
that was familiar, foundational,
and steadying. The distance is
disorienting in ways I did not foresee.

For now I have little to anchor my life.
That organic and interconnected web of
community was so deep a part of my identity.

In this new place
I do not know
where I fit.

I feel myself adrift.
So let my life here take root,
O Christ, and flourish again,
nurtured by your Spirit
and your people, and
bearing good fruit in time.
I do not yet have here the same
resources of vital relationship
to sustain me.

I feel like a weary pioneer recently arrived
with one meager pack of supplies,
who must now find a good place
to begin to carve out a homestead,
a place to sink new roots in hopes
of finding good soil for flourishing.
A meaningful life must somehow be
constructed in this open prairie
of undefined possibilities.

O God, I am lonely here.
But you are present with me.
I am unmoored,
but you are my anchor.
I am unsteady.
But you are my rock.

Now lead me into good community.
Let me forge new friendships.
Give me a place in this place.
Graft me in to your Body, and into
this community, in ways that I might be
blessed, and also be a blessing. Plant me
in places where I might find delight—in
serving and in receiving, in fellowship
and celebration, in sharing the many joys
and griefs and labors, and small and
meaningful moments of which friendships
and fellowships and the community
of saints are finally built.
So let my life here take root,
O Christ, and flourish again,
nurtured by your Spirit
and your people, and
bearing good fruit in time.

Use now even this time of disorientation
to draw my heart closer to yours; to teach
me how better to trust and hope
in your promises, how better
to rest in your love.

Let whatever hardships I endure
for a time be turned—under the sway
of your Spirit—into a more mindful
and active compassion extended toward
others who might suffer similar dismay.

Give me grace enough that I might,
even in my own season of discomfort,
still offer friendship and fellowship to
others who also struggle to find their place.
Let us build good community
and strong friendship
by serving one another.
So let my life here take root,
O Christ, and flourish again,
nurtured by your Spirit
and your people, and
bearing good fruit in time.
Amen."

https://rabbitroom.substack.com/p/a-liturgy-for-seeking-to-find-your

God Knows

I went hiking at Radnor Lake State Park after work today. It’s been a while, and with all the damage from the ice storm a few months back, the park looked a bit different since the last time.

At least that’s my excuse. Somehow, I missed a turn or took a wrong turn and accidentally skipped part of the trail. I looked up expecting to see an incline but saw the road instead.

Then I remembered that I’ve had dreams about this sort of thing. I’ll be trying to get somewhere but I can never find it. Plus, in my dreams the scenery keeps changing so it’s basically impossible to find anything.

Life’s a bit like that. One day, you look up from scrolling social media or reading a book and wonder how you got where you are. Maybe you thought you’d still be working at the old job. Maybe you thought you’d be married by now. Or maybe you thought you’d have children by now.

It’s not so much that you’re lost, but you’re not where you wanted to be. Some days, it seems that your dreams are dead and you’ll never get to your desired destination. You wonder how you got where you are and if God is even on the job.

But God knows. He’s never taken by surprised by what happens to you. In fact, He works every little detail in your life for His glorious purposes. Maybe God’s saving you from something you can’t yet see. Or maybe God’s got a better destination in mind for you that you’re not ready to receive just yet.

God is big enough to accomplish all through you all that He requires of you. You need to show up and be prayed up and willing to do whatever He asks. Trust Him and above all trust His perfect timing. He will do it.

The Christ We Preach

“The One we preach is not Christ-in-a-vacuum, nor a mystical Christ unrelated to the real world, nor even only the Jesus of ancient history, but rather the contemporary Christ who once lived and died, and now lives to meet human need in all its variety today. To encounter Christ is to touch reality and experience transcendence. He gives us a sense of self-worth or personal significance, because he assures us of God’s love for us. He sets us free from guilt because he died for us, from the prison of our own self-centredness by the power of his resurrection, and from paralysing fear because he reigns, all the principalities and powers of evil having been put under his feet. He gives meaning to marriage and home, work and leisure, personhood and citizenship. He introduces us into his new community, the new humanity he is creating. He challenges us to go out into some segment of the world which does not acknowledge him, there to give ourselves in witness and service for him. He promises us that history is neither meaningless nor endless, for one day he will return to terminate it, to destroy death and to usher in the new universe of righteousness and peace” (John Stott).

That is the Christ we preach. This is the Jesus from the Bible, specifically from the Gospels. You can summarize it all up very neatly in John 3:16: “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NLT).

If you go to a church that teaches you anything else, don’t walk out. Run. If your church preaches any kind of gospel other than the one from John 3:16 that Jesus and Paul preached, leave. Paul said that if anyone preached another gospel, even an angel from heaven, let that one be accursed.

The beauty of the true gospel is that it’s for everyone. It’s for anyone who will receive it. Anyone can be born again. Anyone can become a new creation. Anyone can be forgiven and set free from sin. Anyone can become a son or daughter of God through the adoption made possible through the cross.

That’s the Christ we preach and teach and worship and serve and love.

Faux Omniscience

“The serpent told the Woman, “You won’t die. God knows that the moment you eat from that tree, you’ll see what’s really going on. You’ll be just like God, knowing everything, ranging all the way from good to evil” (Genesis 3:4-5, The Message).

The lie from the garden was that if Adam and Eve ate the fruit, they’d have the knowledge of good and evil. They’d be like God. The serpent told them the truth — mostly. And it’s that 2% lie mixed in with the 98% truth that got them in trouble and caused them to rebel against God.

Maybe one way that knowledge of good and evil has expressed itself is that we’re currently in an age of information overload. I recently ran across a statement that we consume in 30 minutes the same amount of content that our grandparents got in a month. That floored me.

Having social media and 24-hour news channels has created an unlimited access to everything happening around the world. I heard it referred to as a faux omniscience. We end up being burdened with all the tragedy from all around the world, somehow feeling like we’re supposed to do something to fix it.

Knowing more doesn’t automatically make you wiser. Sometimes, we can know more than our capacity to process it all in a healthy way. Spiritually, sometimes we can be informed and educated past our capacity for obedience. We become consumed by fear and rage and try to take the place of God in figuring our the solutions to all the world’s problems when in spite of all our learning, we’re still quite finite and limited in our understanding.

Only God has the capacity to know everything plus the wisdom to know what to do about it. Only God is in control and sees everything in the world with perfect clarity. Only God is the one who can fix it. And God has already provided the solution through the cross in Christ Jesus. His victory is already assured and all the evil in the world is from a defeated foe.

Perhaps we need less doomscrolling and news bingeing and more time spent with God. Maybe we need less consuming information, especially from secular sources, and more time spent learning the heart of God through the Bible and prayer. I heard once that the antidote to anxiety is always adoration and worship. That’s the best way.

The Blessing of No

In my daily Bible reading, I ran across a bit of a strange event in the life of David. The text says that God was angry with David, so He incited David to to a count the number of people in Israel. Even Joab, the commander of David’s army who mostly looked out for himself, didn’t think this was a good idea. But why would God incite David to sin?

I think by this point, David has become a bit prideful and probably had the idea of taking a census so he could feed his own ego about how strong he was militarily. What God did was allow him to get what he wanted and to find out how bad that would turn out.

I think one of the hardest yet most worthwhile lessons we can ever learn as believers is that sometimes God not giving us what we ask for is a blessing rather than a punishment. He knows that if we got what we wanted when we were not ready for it, it would destroy us. Or He has something different and better in store for us that we would ask for if we knew what He knew.

Conversely, God often disciplines us by allowing us to have our own way for the sole purpose of seeing where our own desires lead us apart from God. One of the major points of Romans 1 was that one of the consequences of rejecting God was that they got everything they wanted and it only further alienated them from God, each other, and their very selves.

Sometimes, a NO from God is a blessing. He’s protecting you. He knows that you’re not asking from a place of faith but of lustful desire or a thirst for power or selfish ambition. He also knows that ultimately He can’t give you peace or security apart from Himself because He is our peace and security. He is the ultimate fulfillment of every longing and desire, even though we may not see it at the time.

Thank God for every time He says no or not yet. Trust that what He has for you is better. Believe and live in the knowledge that He is enough. Seek Him and His kingdom first above all else and everything else will fall into place.

God Uses Broken Things

“The prophet Jeremiah said: ‘Break up your fallow ground, and do not sow among thorns’ (Jeremiah 4:3). You’ll never have the crop you ought to until you put the plow in, until the old clods are broken. Even the Lord Jesus Christ took the bread at the last supper and said: ‘This is My body which is broken for you.’ People throw broken things away. God uses broken things for His glory” (Adrian Rogers).

I’m thankful God uses broken things instead of throwing them away. God can turn broken circumstances for good for His glory. Best of all, God can use broken people to accomplish His purposes. In fact, He gravitates toward those kinds of people instead of those who have their act together (or at least act like they do).

If you pay attention to the characters in the Bible, you begin to realize that just about every one of them were hot messes. Every single one screwed up at least once or had a character flaw. That’s why the hero to look for in any given bible story isn’t David or Moses or Noah. It’s always God.

Face it. We’re all broken to one degree or another. None of us come close to being perfect. In fact, most of us are doing good to remember our own names some days. But the beautiful part is that God not only works in us in our weaknesses, but He intentionally works THROUGH our weaknesses. They’re the places where God’s strength is made perfect. Just ask Paul.

Remember when the world looks for the best looking or the most talented or the most ambitious, God is looking for the most available. He’s looking for the ones who have messed up multiple times but still show up with expectation, saying, “Here I am, God. Use me today.”

Those are the ones God chooses. Those are the ones God uses.

Waiting with Hope

“There are times when everything looks very dark to me——-so dark that I have to wait before I have hope.Waiting with hope is very difficult, but true patience is expressed when we must even wait for hope. When we see no hint of success but refuse to despair, when we see nothing but the darkness of night through our window yet keep the shutters open because stars may appear in the sky, and when we have an empty place in our heart yet will not allow it to be filled with anything less then God’s best—- that is the greatest kind of patience in the universe. It is the story of Job in the midst of the storm, Abraham on the road to Moriah, Moses in the desert of Midian, and the Son of Man in the garden of Gethsemane. There is no patience as strong as that which endures because we see ‘him who is invisible’ (Hebrews 11:27). It is the kind of patience that waits for hope.

Dear Lord, You have made waiting beautiful and patience divine.You have taught us that Your will should be accepted, simply because it is Your will. You have revealed to us that a person may see nothing but sorrow in his cup yet still be willing to drink it because of a conviction that Your eyes see further then his own.

Father, give me Your divine power—- the power of Gethsemane. Give me the strength to wait for hope—to look through the window when there are no stars. Even when my joy is gone, give me strength to stand victoriously in the darkest night and say, ‘To my Heavenly Father, the sun still shines.’ I will have reached the point of greatest strength once I have learned to wait for hope. Strive to be one of the few who walk this earth with the ever present realization– every morning, noon, and night that the unknown that people call heaven is directly behind those things that are visible(Galatians 5:5). By faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope” (George Matheson).

The Quiet Miracle

Today, I was listening to a podcast from Sally Lloyd-Jones, author of the Jesus Storybook Bible. She was conversing with Sir David Suchet, best known for his portrayal of Agatha Christie’s Poirot, about several topics of faith.

One topic of interest to me was when they talked about the miracle at Cana where Jesus turned the water into wine. David noted that one particular thing struck him about the miracle in that Jesus appeared to say or do nothing to bring it about. He didn’t offer a blessing. He didn’t wave His arms or lift up a prayer. He told the servants to fill up the large pitchers with water and when the taster got to them, the water had become wine.

It was a quiet miracle. Michael Card calls it the unmiraculous miracle. It’s notable that presumably no one at the wedding ever found out about the miracle except for the servants who poured the water. Not the wedding hosts or the guests. Not the bride or groom. Only the servants.

Jesus was quietly inaugurating His kingdom and only a few servants were in on it. I’m reminded of how the first people to witness the Incarnation were shepherds who had been out in the fields tending their flocks. The first witnesses of the resurrection were the same women whose testimony would not have counted in a court of law back in that day.

Again and again, Jesus chose the nobodies of the world to be the first to hear His good news. The gospel wasn’t given to the famous or the rich or the powerful at first, but to those discounted and outcast and disregarded by everyone else. But they were the ones Jesus chose.

Isn’t that how it works even now. To those who feel forgotten or left out, Jesus sees you. To those that nobody counts as worth anything, Jesus thought you were worth dying for. To those who sometimes feel like they’re taking up space in the world, Jesus has invited you to be a part of His Great Commission and to be His disciples. Even now, the gospel of Jesus is for you. Even you. Even me.

Easter Monday 2026

I stayed up late on a school night, but it was worth it. I may feel like a complete zombie in the morning, but I have complete confidence that even this zombie will be resurrected one day just as Jesus was raised from the grave that Easter Sunday morning so long ago.

Seeing Andrew Peterson and company on Easter Monday is my new favorite Easter Monday tradition. There’s something special about hearing and singing the Easter story one more time. I don’t know about you, but I need to be reminded of the gospel as many times as I’m prone to be forgetful, which is often.

My favorite part is the part where they leave Jesus in the tomb and all the lights go out. Then the drums kick in and the crowd goes crazy because we all know what comes next. Death is defeated forever. The grave that could not hold the Messiah will not hold anyone who belongs to Him. Sin and condemnation will not have the last word.

For me, both Christmas and Easter need more than one day to appreciate fully the incarnation and resurrection. Sometimes I wonder if a lifetime’s not long enough to grasp everything that Jesus accomplished for us in fulfilling all the prophecies and breaking the curse that sin held over us. It will take an eternity to thank Him properly.

I love how Easter heralds in Spring and the annual advent of new life. Gone is the barrenness of winter as flowers bloom and trees bring forth leaves and all is green again. It’s a beautiful picture of life from death, a yearly reminder of the resurrection. We can hope in the fact that since we are in Christ, our story does not in in ashes. We are not left in the dark of the tomb.

May we not relegate the celebration of the resurrection to one day out of the year but to all the days for all the years God gives us. May we always be bold to proclaim that Christ is no longer dead but risen and alive and able to save to the uttermost. May we live as those who have been transformed by this resurrection power that now lives in us through the Holy Spirit. He is risen! He is risen indeed!

Easter Sunday 2026

The empty tomb means everything. It means that Jesus is not dead and buried but alive and reigning. It means that Jesus defeated death, the grave, and hell forever. It means that there’s nothing you and I will ever face that hasn’t already been overcome by the cross and the empty tomb.

The Apostle Paul says that if Jesus isn’t alive and raised from the dead, it’s all meaningless. Our faith is futile and our hope is in vain. We’re the most pitiful people on the planet. He doesn’t make any allowances for a symbolic resurrection. If Jesus is only alive in our hearts and in our memories, then our faith is worthless and we might as well go and do what we like and believe in nothing at all.

But because Jesus is alive, our hope is alive. Our pain and suffering now have a purpose as well as an expiration date. Those we lost in the Lord are not gone forever. All the wrong and evil in the world will one day be made right and good. We can survive anything because we look to Jesus who endured the cross and despised the shame because He was looking at the joy just over the horizon beyond the tomb.

Easter gives meaning to Christmas (and everything else). Jesus is not a good teacher who gave us good morals and examples to follow. He is Messiah who fulfilled all the prophecies ever made about Him. He is Lord of all who demands our ultimate allegiance. He is God incarnate, 100% man and 100% God. He is the only one who can take our place on the cross and our punishment for the sins we’ve committed.

If Jesus is dead, then Easter is nothing but a hollow holiday with no meaning. But if He is alive — and He is — then Easter is the day we celebrate the best good news ever. That means that we who were dead can be made alive again. We who were guilty and deserving of death can be forgiven and pardoned and set free. We who were condemned and estranged from God can now become sons and daughters of God and heirs to the promise. Thank You, Lord, for Easter Sunday!