The very essence of Jesus’ time on earth was dotted with pain and joy, with laughing and grieving, sometimes in the very same breath.
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We asked a handful of artists at Summit—designers, painters, photographers, and writers—to take a simple prompt, “Jesus works miracles,” and to use their medium to express it. To take a truth about Jesus and use some of their God-given materials to share it with the world. Just as God uses his creation to reveal himself more fully to each of us, we, as image-bearers of God, can choose to use our creativity to show the world who he is.
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In Ephesians 1:17, Paul tells the Ephesians he prays for them as follows, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.” There you have it: Father, Son and Holy Spirit all working together for the Ephesians’ (and our) benefit.
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Of course Jesus was a storyteller. He is the one who created us for story. He knew we would need stories to pass down his wisdom from generation to generation. He knew we would need stories to build depth of relationship in community. He knew we would need stories to make sense of this broken world.
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It struck me recently that while Jesus is a great example—a perfect example really—for how we ought to live, there is one thing necessary in our lives that Jesus taught but never had to model.
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Last year I spoke at For Her and it was the most surreal night of my 2017 and I met the Backstreet Boys in 2017, so there was some fierce competition. Female friendships have always been a challenge for me. I worry a lot that I’m too much and yet simultaneously not nearly enough.
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As the Holy-Spirit-inspired historical accounts of four men about the life and death of God’s son, Jesus, the Gospels highlight the tension of varied perspectives. While each Gospel can stand on its own as a reliable account, the authors—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—wrote with different purposes and to different audiences.
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I am not very good at prayer, I think because I’m too busy doing stuff—stuff that I think is important and necessary and, well, I just don’t have time to stop and pray. How would I ever get things done?
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I’ve been in this season recently where I’ve encountered a potential disconnect between my will and God’s will. I’m hoping and praying for something seemingly impossible. Something that could very well be in God’s plan, but maybe not. I don’t know yet. In this tension God is teaching me some things about my relationship to his will. And one of the ways he’s taught is through Summit’s Gospel Reading Plan.
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What is your response when you encounter Jesus? Not necessarily a conversation, but when something in your life clearly suggests that Jesus is at work, or you read a verse of Scripture and find it striking.
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When I was asked what I would want to record for the Jesus Songs project, my answer was pretty quick. I had written the bulk of a song called “I Call Him Lord” right after completing my first ever worship album release last year. It’s pretty typical (and frustrating) for me that whenever I get done with some big creative project, it’s usually followed by a wave of creativity that makes the project I just finished seem obsolete already.
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I have never been very good at the whole Lent thing—even though I’ve successfully given something up for Lent a number of times. Growing up in the Southern Baptist church, Lent wasn’t something I had any awareness of. So as a freshman in college, newly involved in a church that celebrated the season with the option of fasting from something, I remember being genuinely excited to try it.
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I grew up Catholic, so the Lenten season is very familiar to me. I can recall many years trying to find something to give up, usually landing on chocolate or TV (because being in 2nd grade and not having chocolate is a real hard thing). For the past several years, since becoming a mom, I have tried to focus more on a specific spiritual practice to add into my life that will draw me closer to God rather than giving up something tangible.
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As we have begun our journey through reading the Gospels and discovering who Jesus really was as he walked this earth, I have kept this one verse on a loop in the back of my mind. As I’ve allowed the stories of the Gospel of John to play out in my imagination, I find myself looking for the moments in which Jesus faced all of the struggles I face in my own life today—from the intense and painful moments of my life to the seemingly mundane and innocuous ones.
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Not long after leaving the Summit offices for the last time (I was carrying my goldfish under my arm while the staff gave me hugs—it was all very dramatic), I was invited to go on a trip and experience the work of IJM first-hand. As you may imagine, it was a life-altering journey.
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So maybe you’re thinking about joining a Summit team going to Africa this year. Or maybe you’re thinking about sponsoring a child. Or maybe you just find yourself thinking about Summit’s partnerships in Africa but you’re not exactly sure why.
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When my wife Kelly asks me, “Do you love me?” I know something is off in our relationship. That’s not the kind of question that gets asked just because. She doesn’t ask me that so she can hear me poetically describe my love for her using the Song of Solomon—saying her hair is like a flock of goats or her cheeks like pomegranates. She’s asking because she doesn’t feel loved.
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A little over three years ago, while traveling with my oldest son Samuel to visit friends in Uganda, I was struck by the thought that not everyone in our world or even in our church has a clear sense of our core identity as a church.
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Over the summer, during times I was exercising, I listened to The Boys in the Boat, a very well-written book on the 1936 USA crew team that won the Olympics in Nazi Germany. It is an inspiring true tale of the quest for glory undertaken by a group of young men who rose from depression-era underdogs to icons of their sport and the American spirit.
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The first time I prayed a desperate, cry-from-the-heart, kind of prayer was when I was about 8 years old and our cat went missing. I went into my bedroom, kneeled in front of a small statue of Jesus, and begged him to bring Smutty Nose back. While I was still on my knees, I heard my sister yell from the driveway, “Guys! Guys! Smutty Nose is back.”
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