John March

Author: webadmin

  • Love Jesus but not the Church?

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    It’s pretty en vogue these days to say you love Jesus but you don’t think too much of the church.  It’s understandable.  When Jesus walked the earth, he did some pretty amazing things.  He also taught with a wisdom that was unique to what anyone had ever heard.  Both in word and in deed, Jesus…

  • Truthfully Broken People

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    It’s amazing how broken our world is.   Since I’ve started planting New City Covenant, I’ve become more aware of both my own brokenness and that of others.  I sit down with anywhere from 2 to 10 people each week and share my story and the vision of our church with them.  I also listen…

  • Honesty

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    At breakfast one morning, a wife looks at her husband as he reads the financial page of the newspaper, just as he has done every morning for the past twenty years.  She longs to yank away the paper and tell him she is just as in love with him today as she was the day…

  • Shame on You!

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    Has anyone ever said that to you?  Has anyone ever seen the way you behaved and said, “Shame on you?”  This phrase implies there is something wrong with you just because you made a mistake or did something wrong.  By saying shame on you, the message you hear is you are a worse person because…

  • Hate, on film and in community

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    A new movie documentary, The Anatomy of Hate, is coming out that explores the origins and reasons for hate.  The film documents hate in the lives of people from white supremacists in the south, Christians who define themselves as anti-gay, to the Arab-Israeli conflict.  It looks fascinating.  As a pastor who believes deeply in community,…

  • A Fatherless Generation

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    I continue to slowly re-read Nouwen’s Wounded Healer.  This is one of the best books on Christian leadership I have ever read.  It feels like Nouwen is peering into the window of my soul as he writes and perfectly describing the human condition as I experience it. In the second chapter, he attempts to characterize…

  • A Parable on Technology

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    An Indian Tale quoted in Nouwen’s Wounded Healer: Four royal sons were questioning what specialty they should master.  They said to one another, “Let us search the earth and learn a special science.”  So they decided, and after they had agreed on a place where they would meet again, the four brothers started off, each…

  • A Theology of House Buying: Contentment

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    http://www.flickr.com/photos/shalawesome/ / CC BY-NC 2.0 We all want to be happy.  The other night I pursued happiness in my third helping of french toast (yeah, I said night; we were having brinner ;)).  The sticky, sweet goodness of french toast covered with syrup was delightful…in that moment.  But not long after dinner, I felt awful.…

  • A Theology of House Buying: Stewardship

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    http://www.flickr.com/photos/mckaysavage/ / CC BY 2.0 I sat inside his meager thatch hut, listening to his story, told through the tears of an orphan whose parents had died of AIDS.  At thirteen, Richard was trying to raise his two younger brothers by himself in this small shack with no running water, electricity, or even beds to…

  • A Theology of House Buying

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    http://www.flickr.com/photos/seandreilinger/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Mary and I have decided to buy a house.  Neither of us have ever bought a house before, and it’s a big decision.  I’ve been struck by how little the church talks about what principles should guide our thinking when we are buying a house.  Where should you live?  How…