The Plugged-In Pastor

Thought for the Day

2009-06-27T04:00:00.000-07:00

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.
--Baruch Spinoza

Thought for the Day

2009-06-26T04:00:00.000-07:00

I have not the courage to search through books for beautiful prayers...Unable to say them all or choose between them, I do as a child would do who cannot read--I say just what I want to say to God, quite simply, and He never fails to understand.
--St. Therese of Lisieux

Thought for the Day

2009-06-25T04:00:00.000-07:00

Without repentance those who have created peace through their power imagine that they have created pure peace: and suffer from the delusion that the enemies of their peace are God's enemies.
--Reinhold Niebuhr

Thought for the Day

2009-06-24T04:00:00.000-07:00

Economic oppression cannot exist without its religious justifications.
--M. Douglas Meeks

Thought for the Day

2009-06-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

Silly people think that money commands the bodily goods most worth having.
--St. Thomas Aquinas

Thought for the Day

2009-06-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes

Sunday's Prayer

2009-06-21T04:36:00.001-07:00

O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your lovingkindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Thought for the Day

2009-06-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

Almost nothing that makes any real difference can be proved.
--Frederick Buechner

Thought for the Day

2009-06-19T04:00:00.000-07:00

Faith is a footbridge that you don't know will hold you up over the chasm until you're forced to walk out onto it.
--Nicholas Wolterstorff

Thought for the Day

2009-06-18T04:00:00.000-07:00

I have become aware, not by my own wish, almost against my will, of an existence of another life of far, far greater importance and beauty than this physical one.
--Hugh Walpole

Thought for the Day

2009-06-17T04:00:00.000-07:00

Faith is a free surrender and a joyous wager on the unseen, unknown, untested goodness of God.
--Martin Luther

Thought for the Day

2009-06-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

The deepest, the only theme of human history, compared to which all others are of subordinate importance, is the conflict of skepticism with faith.
--Wolfgang Von Goethe

Thought for the Day

2009-06-15T09:36:00.000-07:00

Those who believe they believe in God but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.
--Madeleine L'Engle

Sunday's Prayer

2009-06-14T16:16:00.000-07:00

Keep, O Lord, your household the Church in your steadfast faith and love, that through your grace we may proclaim your truth with boldness, and minister your justice with compassion; for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Thought for the Day

2009-06-13T04:00:00.000-07:00

God gives every bird its food, but he does not throw it into the nest.
--Josiah Holland

Thought for the Day

2009-06-12T04:00:00.000-07:00

Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.
--Teilhard de Chardin

Thought for the Day

2009-06-11T08:36:00.000-07:00

Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love.
--Reinhold Niebuhr

Thought for the Day

2009-06-10T06:28:00.000-07:00

Trust in God's power and grace can never be overdone, since no situation is too complex, too complicated or too convoluted for God. It is never too late for a miracle, because divine power can write straight with crooked lines.
--Albert Haase

Thought for the Day

2009-06-09T06:36:00.000-07:00

We step back and trust God to do with our prayers whatever, however, and whenever he chooses...All now is in our Father's hands.
--Eugene Peterson

Thought for the Day

2009-06-08T14:56:00.000-07:00

Praising God isn't something we do, an activity we engage in among other activities. It is a fundamental way of being toward God...Praise of the psalmist is an expression of delight, and so is our own praise. Of course God wants it. It is the recognition, both conscious and unconscious, that God's name is hallowed in all things.
--Roberta C. Bondi

2009-06-07T16:00:00.000-07:00

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Thought for the Day

2009-06-06T04:00:00.000-07:00

Men are never duly touched and impressed with a conviction of their insignificance, until they have contrasted themselves with the majesty of God."
--R. C. Sproul

Thought for the Day

2009-06-05T06:00:00.000-07:00

To just read the Bible, attend church, and avoid "big" sins--is this passionate, wholehearted love for God?
--Francois Fenelon

Thought for the Day

2009-06-03T09:37:00.000-07:00

There is an odd tendency in human beings to think we can worm or charm our way out of the consequences of our actions.
--John Ortberg

Thought for the Day

2009-06-02T05:46:00.000-07:00

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
--Martin Luther King Jr.

Thought for the Day

2009-06-01T08:16:00.000-07:00

God appears far less threatened by doubt than does his church.
--Philip Yancey

Sunday's Prayer

2009-05-31T10:31:00.000-07:00

Almighty God, on this day you opened the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of your Holy Spirit: Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Thought for the Day

2009-05-30T04:00:00.000-07:00

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.
-- Corrie Ten Boom

Thought for the Day

2009-05-29T16:26:00.001-07:00

Never doubt in the dark what God has shown you in the light.
--Edith Edman

Thought for the Day

2009-05-28T06:57:00.000-07:00

In the same way the Church exists for nothing else but to draw men into Christ, to make them little Christs. If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals, clergy, missions, sermons, even the bible itself, are simply a waster of time. God became Man for no other purpose.
--C. S. Lewis

Thought for the Day

2009-05-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

God's image and identity are still defaced. They are slandered by poverty, by injustice, by corruption, by disease, and by human exploitation and suffering.
--Richard Stearns

Thought for the Day

2009-05-25T06:40:00.000-07:00

This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.
--Theodore Roosevelt

Thought for the Day

2009-05-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

Yet, as our calendars get fuller and fuller, our souls grow emptier and emptier. The wisdom of Jesus is proven again: "What shall it profit a man, if he should gain the whole world (the electronic world included) but lose his own soul" (Mark 8:36). Our souls long for silence, inner peace, temporary disconnection from the technological in order to momentarily reconnect to the spiritual.
--Jeremy Berg

Thought for the Day

2009-05-22T07:16:00.000-07:00

Two rabbis sere sitting in a park arguing about a passage of the Torah. They've been arguing about it for years and can never come to an agreement. God is so tired of their contending that finally God parts the sky, comes down and says, "You guys have been fighting for years. I'll tell you what the passage means." And in a rare moment of unity, the two rabbis turn to God and say, "What right have you to come down here and tell us what it means? Go away and let us argue."
--Jewish Parable

Thought for the Day

2009-05-21T08:13:00.001-07:00

It was not with a cheque drawn on Caesar's bank that Jesus sent his apostles out into the world.
--Felicite de Lamennais

Thought for the Day

2009-05-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

God cannot be grasped by the mind. If he could be grasped, he would not be God.
--Evagrius of Pontus

Thought for the Day

2009-05-18T09:33:00.000-07:00

The first Reformation...was about creeds; this one's going to be about our deeds. The first one divided the church; this time it will unify the church.
--Rick Warren

Sunday's Prayer

2009-05-17T03:40:00.001-07:00

O God, you have prepared for those who love you such good things as surpass our understanding: Pour into our hearts such love towards you, that we, loving you in all things and above all things, may obtain your promises, which exceed all that we can desire; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Thought for the Day

2009-05-16T05:49:00.000-07:00

Christ has no body on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ's compassion for the world is to look out; yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.
--St. Teresa of Avila

Thought for the Day

2009-05-15T10:12:00.000-07:00

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.
--Helen Keller

Thought for the Day

2009-05-14T10:39:00.000-07:00

Make your life a mission--not an intermission.
--Arnold Glasgow

Thought for the Day

2009-05-13T17:39:00.000-07:00

If charity cost nothing, the world would be full of philanthropists.
--Jewish Proverb

Thought for the Day

2009-05-12T07:06:00.001-07:00

God can't steer a parked car.
--Earl Palmer

Thought for the Day

2009-05-11T07:33:00.001-07:00

The one who says it can't be done should get out of the way of the one who is doing it.
--Chinese Proverb

Sunday's Prayer

2009-05-10T04:54:00.001-07:00

Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Thought for the Day

2009-05-09T17:44:00.001-07:00

Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
--Henry Van Dyke

Thought for the Day

2009-05-08T09:43:00.000-07:00

That bread which you keep belongs to the hungry; that coat which you preserve in our wardrobe, to the naked; those shoes which are rotting in our possession, to the shoeless; that gold which you have hidden in the ground, to the needy. Wherefore, as often as you are able to help others, and refuse, so often did you do them wrong.
--Augustine

Thought for the Day

2009-05-06T17:47:00.001-07:00

My faith demands--this is not optional--my faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have tot try to make a difference.
--Jimmy Carter

Thought for the Day

2009-05-04T12:58:00.001-07:00

Thought for the Day

2009-05-04T12:43:00.000-07:00

Be the change that you want to see in the world.
--Mohandas Gandhi

Sunday's Prayer

2009-05-03T16:29:00.001-07:00

O God, whose Son Jesus is the good shepherd of your people: Grant that when we hear his voice we may know him who calls us each by name, and follow where he leads; who, with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Thought for the Day

2009-05-02T04:00:00.000-07:00

If you think you are too small to make a difference, try spending the night ina closed room with a mosquito.
--African Saying

Thought for the Day

2009-05-01T04:00:00.000-07:00

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
--Abraham Lincoln

Thought for the Day

2009-04-30T04:00:00.000-07:00

Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.
--Joel Barker

Thought for the Day

2009-04-29T04:00:00.000-07:00

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
--Margaret Mead

Thought for the Day

2009-04-28T04:00:00.000-07:00

Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
--Billy Sunday

Thought for the Day

2009-04-27T04:00:00.000-07:00

Endeavor to live so that when you die, even the undertaker will be sorry.
--Anonymous

Sunday's Prayer

2009-04-26T04:00:00.000-07:00

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in all his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen

Thought for the Day

2009-04-25T04:00:00.000-07:00

Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
--Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Thought for the Day

2009-04-24T04:00:00.000-07:00

I like the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.
--William Sloane Coffin

Thought for the Day

2009-04-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

Obedience to the Great Commission has more consistently been poisoned by affluence than by anything else.
--Ralph Winter

Thought for the Day

2009-04-22T04:00:00.000-07:00

How different our standard is from Christ's. We ask how much a man gives. He asks how much he keeps.
--Andrew Murray

Thought for the Day

2009-04-21T04:00:00.000-07:00

Mankind wants glory. We want health. We want wealth. We want happiness. We want all our felt needs met, all our little human itches scratched. We want a painless life. We want the crown without the cross. We want the gain without the pain. We want the words of Christ's salvation to be easy.
--John MacArthur

Thought for the Day

2009-04-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.
--Martin Luther King Jr.

Sunday's Prayer

2009-04-19T11:45:00.000-07:00

Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ's Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Thought for the Day

2009-04-18T04:00:00.000-07:00

The world can no longer be left to mere diplomats, politicians and business leaders. They have done the best they could, no doubt. But this is an age for spiritual heroes--a time for men and women to be heroic in their faith and in spiritual character and power. The greatest danger to the Christian church today is that of pitching its message too low.
--Dallas Willard

Thought for the Day

2009-04-17T04:00:00.000-07:00

A church that lives within its four walls is no church at all.
--Morgan Chilulu

Thought for the Day

2009-04-16T04:00:00.000-07:00

Baseball is like church. Many attend, few understand.
--Leo Durocher

Thought for the Day

2009-04-15T04:00:00.000-07:00

We've drifted away from being fishers of men to being keepers of the aquarium.
--Paul Harvey

Thought for the Day

2009-04-14T07:10:00.000-07:00

If you educate a man, you simply educate an individual, but if you educate a woman, you educate a nation.
--African Proverb

Thought for the Day

2009-04-13T18:24:00.000-07:00

He who is dying of hunger must be fed rather than taught.
--St. Thomas Aquinas

Prayer for Easter

2009-04-12T15:53:00.001-07:00

Almighty God, who through your only-begotten Son Jesus Christ overcame death and opened to us the gate of everlasting life: Grant that we, who celebrate with joy the day of the Lord's resurrection, may be raised from the death of sin by your life-giving Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Thought for the Day

2009-04-11T04:00:00.000-07:00

Christianity is flourishing wonderfully among the poor and persecuted while it atrophies among the rich and secure.
--Philip Jenkins

Thought for the Day

2009-04-10T04:00:00.000-07:00

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.
--George Bernard Shaw

Thought for the Day

2009-04-09T04:00:00.000-07:00

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.
--John W. Gardner

Thought for the Day

2009-04-08T04:00:00.000-07:00

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
--Flannery O'Connor

The Evolution and Moral Judgments

2009-04-07T06:43:00.000-07:00

David Brooks has an interesting Op Ed article in the New York Times today about evolution and moral reasoning.

Thought for the Day

2009-04-07T04:00:00.000-07:00

Facts are stubborn things.
--John Adams

Thought for the Day

2009-04-06T04:00:00.000-07:00

More and more I come to value charity and love on one's fellow being above everything else...All our lauded technological progress--our very civilization--is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal.
--Albert Einstein

Prayer for Palm Sunday

2009-04-05T14:39:00.000-07:00

Almighty and everliving God, who, in your tender love for the human race, you sent your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, to take upon him our nature, and to suffer death upon the cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant, that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Interview with Rev. Jim Wallis on Faith-Based Initiatives

2009-04-04T07:36:00.000-07:00

I recently viewed an interesting video interview of Rev. Jim Wallis by Sally Quinn on the issue of President Obama's faith-based initiative. Click here to view the video.

Thought for the Day

2009-04-04T04:00:00.000-07:00

The poverty of our century is unlike that of any other. It is not, as poverty was before, the result of natural scarcity, but of a set of priorities imposed upon the res of the world by the rich. Consequently, the modern poor are not pitied...but written off as trash. The twentieth-century consumer economy has produced the first culture for which a beggar is a reminder of nothing.
--John Berger

Thought for the Day

2009-04-03T04:00:00.000-07:00

God does not call the equipped; He equips the called.
--Anonymous

Thought for the Day

2009-04-02T04:00:00.000-07:00

The soul is healed by being with children.
--Fyodor Dostoevsky

Thought for the Day

2009-04-01T06:11:00.000-07:00

Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets.
--Paul Tournier

Thought for the Day

2009-03-31T04:00:00.000-07:00

If God only used perfect people, nothing would get done. God will use anybody if you're available.
--Rick Warren

Thought for the Day

2009-03-30T04:00:00.000-07:00

A holy life will produce the deepest impression. Lighthouses blow no horns; they only shine.
--D. L. Moody

Sunday's Prayer

2009-03-29T04:00:00.000-07:00

Blessed are you, sovereign Lord of all.
From you comes peace;
Open our lives to your peace,
Open our dealings to your peace,
Fill our world with your peace,
That we may live together in peace,
And worship you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Thought for the Day

2009-03-28T04:00:00.000-07:00

I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.
--C. S. Lewis

Thought for the Day

2009-03-27T04:00:00.000-07:00

Live as if Christ died yesterday, rose this morning and is coming back tomorrow.
--Martin Luther

Thought for the Day

2009-03-26T04:00:00.000-07:00

In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

2009-03-25T04:00:00.000-07:00

Growth demands a temporary surrender of security.
--Gail Sheehy

Thought for the Day

2009-03-24T04:00:00.000-07:00

If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.
--Sir Francis Bacon

Thought for the Day

2009-03-23T04:00:00.000-07:00

When we say that we want to be His disciple, yet attach a list of conditions, Jesus refuses to accept our terms. His terms involve unconditional surrender.
--Richard Stearns

Sunday's Prayer

2009-03-22T04:00:00.000-07:00

Blessed are you. Lord God, Creator of all.
You have called us out of darkness
Into your bright light,
Into Christ's light.
Let his presence guide us this day,
That we may share his light
And walk before you as children of light,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Thought for the Day

2009-03-21T04:00:00.000-07:00

The true gospel is a call to self-denial. It is not a call to self-fulfillment.
--John MacArthur

Thought for the Day

2009-03-20T04:00:00.000-07:00

To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.
--Confucius

Thought for the Day

2009-03-19T04:00:00.000-07:00

We have shrunk Jesus to the size where He can save our soul but don't believe He can change the world.
--Anonymous

Thought for the Day

2009-03-18T08:33:00.000-07:00

Faith today is treated as something that only should make us different, not that actually does or can make us different. In reality we vainly struggle against the evils of this world, waiting to die and go to heaven. Somehow we've gotten the idea that the essence of faith is entirely a mental and inward thing.
--Dallas Willard

Thought for the Day

2009-03-17T18:20:00.000-07:00

Kindness has converted more sinners than zeal, eloquence, or learning.
--Frederick W. Faber