I ended the most recent post in this series by suggesting that understanding Christianity through the guiding principle of shalom, peace or wholeness, could provide a helpful way of framing the concept of faith. Today I’d like to unpack this more, and propose that ‘faith’ is living out shalom, or following the pathway of peace. … Continue reading Faith: Following the Pathway of Peace
It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these regular reflections on the Sunday readings. I had to smile when I was preparing for today’s post, since the process felt so familiar. Looking at the world around me, it’s hard not to think “Wow, things are really hard and all signs point to them … Continue reading Audacious Trust: A Reflection on Jeremiah 32.1-3, 6-15
Today we come to the end of this series on eight movements of faithful growth with this reflection on the movement toward accountability. I have to admit that I'm grateful this is the last piece of the framework. It is a helpful place for the series to end since accountability ties the other seven movements … Continue reading The Movement toward Accountability
One of the recurring themes so far in this series on eight movements of faithful growth (a framework suggested by Wilkie Au and Noreen Cannon Au in their wonderful book The Discerning Heart) has been the need to ask how the specific kinds of growth we've been talking about are about faith. The post on … Continue reading The Movement toward Trust in God’s Faithfulness
Today's topic in this series on movements of growth is a controversial one. It is "the movement toward trust in oneself." A lot of you won't find this surprising at all; we talk a lot in our culture about trusting ourselves, trusting our gut or intuition, and so on. But others of you — especially … Continue reading The Movement toward Trust in Oneself
Matthew Root 