Transformed | Inspired | Called

Easter People Living in a Good Friday World

- by Doug Amstutz

Recently I ran across the phrase that Christians are an Easter people living in a Good Friday world. That phrase stuck with me. I liked it. We certainly know what a Good Friday world means. A world of darkness and violence and injustice.

Transformed. Inspired. Called: An MCEC Devotional

Paying Attention to What Matters

- by Stephen Cox

I don’t know about you, but it’s pretty rare that I find myself worshiping alongside 10,000 pastors and church leaders.

But that’s exactly what happened recently at the Exponential Conference in Orlando, Florida. It was, in many ways, a fish-out-of-water experience for me. Big, loud, high energy. Very different from the quieter, grounded rhythms many of us are used to in our Mennonite context.

Transformed. Inspired. Called: An MCEC Devotional

You Are the Salt of the Earth, O People

- by Annika Krause

Recently I was doing the children’s story at my church, and I was trying to explain why Jesus calls us to be the salt of the earth in Matthew 5:13. In the minds of most people salt is ordinary, basic, and boring. I mean, sure, salt makes foods taste better, and maybe in an indirect way Jesus is telling us our job is to make the world a more palatable place, but that doesn’t quite hit the mark.

Transformed. Inspired. Called: An MCEC Devotional

Eyes Open, Eyes Closed

- by Brent Musser

When I am with the gathered church, I often close my eyes during worship. I do it during prayers, but also during songs and during the sermon. I do it, I think, to help my concentration, to establish a connection with the divine, to listen carefully to a thread of thought I picked up in a song or in a message of good news.(1:21 NRSV)

Transformed. Inspired. Called: An MCEC Devotional