Shalom For The City

10/23/2024

Building personal relationships of love and community with the marginalized and poor has been our primary focus from the very beginning of this work back in 2009.

10/15/2024

This text has long been illuminating & challenging to me. In my experience, most American Christians think faithfulness should only produce results coinciding with the lefthand column (success; triumph; etc.- unless it's elsewhere), and judge others accordingly. The Spirit indicates faithfulness anywhere will oft produce results in keeping with the righthand column - even if not to those extremes. It will often be the case that those whose lives are crushed & broken (tragedy; poverty; homelessness; etc) suffer as a *result of* faith in God.

10/09/2024

09/01/2024

In Western, Capitalist culture, this truthful summary is a stumbling block to everyone. Myself included (neither Jesus nor Paul would be deemed a "success" in today's wealth & success driven culture).

05/07/2024

We lost a close sister and friend, Vera Stafford (pictured in the middle), to cancer recently. Vera had an extraordinary and difficult life - I can't even touch the hem. She lost a teenage son to su***de. She was a he**in addict and homeless for many years. We met her in a shelter as she was just coming off the street. Her life was transformed by faith and grace and we were blessed to have her as part of our church for the past 7 years. Her friendship was a great blessing for Melanie and myself. Over the past months she penned a large notebook full of spiritual thoughts to pass on to her family. I was honored to speak at her family's celebration of life this past Sunday. I've included one below that she asked to be read this week. It says a lot about her faith.

05/05/2024

For in him [Jesus] all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him.
.. and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

Colossians 1:16, 20

04/11/2024

1 Timothy 2:3-6a …

02/17/2024

Love this observation from Hart and the challenge it presents when we seek security in 'the beguiling contingencies peculiar to some particular epic or school.'

01/15/2024

May we seek to live this out every day.

Learn English with Martin Luther King Jr. MLK delivers his powerful and historic "I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington. This speech, symboli...