Boxing Day, celebrated on December 26, is the second day of Christmas and a day of charity and public festivity. The day is named for gift boxes given to those outside the immediate family, especially those who serve us throughout the year. (It might have something to do with boxing, too, but you’ll have to…
Hymn Guide: My Worth is Not in What I Own
“My Worth is Not in What I Own” is a contemporary hymn about the surpassing worth of Christ and his cross. It references the many good things of this world—including possessions, strength, skill, and reputation—but rejects them as the basis of personal worth. Instead, it fixes our value in the unconditional love of Christ, our…
Beyond Lent: Spiritual Disciplines for the Whole Year
For Anglicans and other liturgical Christians, Lent is the time we set aside each year to focus on the spiritual disciplines of prayer, repentance, almsgiving, and fasting. In the weeks leading up to Lent, it is not uncommon to encounter folks criticizing the Lenten practices as unbiblical. Typically, the criticism is that we should not…
Lent at Antioch: The Spiritual Disciplines of the First Christians
The first Christians did not have the noun “Lent” nor a forty-day season before Easter. However, they did practice the spiritual disciplines of Lent: almsgiving, fasting, and prayer. In the New Testament, we see all three practices together at the church at Antioch, where believers were first called Christians. Acts 11 and Acts 13 describe how these…
Lenten Disciplines: Almsgiving
We continue our series on the Lenten disciplines with one often neglected during this season: almsgiving. Almsgiving is not a word that we use often today. We will often speak of “mission support,” “charity,” or something akin to “philanthropy.” These terms certainly speak of God’s mission or of his call to us to be a…
