Kenton J. Kutney

What we need most is to shine the change that the Light of the World truly makes in a person. That is the greatest apologetic.  (It is God's purpose for His Bride. 'Be' the Church; we don't merely go to a building and 'do' churchiness. That's just Churchianity and not the real Christianity the world needs to see so badly. It's as different as Winterfest is from the Spirit of Christmas.) To the cynical rationalist we only have to turn to old souls like Blaise Pascal - "The heart has its reasons that Reason cannot understand." Belief supersedes reason. Reason serves faith. Another wise person said: "I believe in order that I may understand." - Augustine I think that order is crucial. The greatest reply for the seeker to consider is, What is "the God who speaks" saying to me? If one is not even seeking to understand, then what more could we ever say endlessly into the wind? Even a witnessed miracle pr

Dear Jesus, help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go. Flood our souls with your spirit and life. Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly, that our lives may only be a radiance of yours. Shine through us, and be so in us, that every person we should come in contact with may feel your presence in our soul. Let them look up and see no longer us, but only Jesus. Stay with us, and then we shall begin to shine as you shine; so to shine as to be a light to others; the light, Jesus, will be all from you. None of it will be ours. It will be you shining on others through us. Let us thus praise you in the way you love best, by shining on those around us. Let us preach you without preaching: not by words, but by our example, by the catching force, the sympathetic infuence of what we do, the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear for you. Amen.  — Mother Teresa

Prayer Write your blessed name, O Lord, upon my heart, there to remain so indelibly engraved, that no prosperity, no adversity shall ever move me from your love . Be to me a strong tower of defence, a comforter in tribulation, a deliverer in distress, a very present help in trouble and a guide to heaven through the many temptations and dangers of this life. — Thomas A Kempis A timeless prayer as the old year gently slips away and the new one comes into view - may it be one blessed with love and grace in your life.

If you are at all compelled by Christmas: The kids, the lights, the joy of giving, the comfort and love of the season, it is not what they call the 'magic' of Christmas that is at work.  It is the 'Spirit' of the Season, God's own gracious, loving abundance.  Consider all the beauty of it and, "Let every heart prepare Him room" (Joy To The World).   Merry Christmas!!

  O Lord, to be turned from you is to fall, to be turned to you is to rise, and to stand in you is to abide forever. Grant us in all our duties your help,  in all our perplexities your guidance, in all our dangers your protection, and in all our sorrows your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  —St. Thomas Aquinas

O Lord my God;   Teach my heart this day where and how to see you;   Where and how to find you.   You have made me and remade me;   And you have bestowed on me all the good things I possess;   And still I do not know you.   I have not yet done that for which I was made.   Teach me to seek you;   For I cannot seek you unless you teach me;   Or find you unless you show yourself to me;   Let me seek you in my desire;   Let me desire you in my seeking;   Let me find you by loving you;   Let me love you when I find you.  — St. Anselm

  Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love, Where there is injury, pardon Where there is doubt, faith, Where there is despair, hope, Where there is darkness, light, Where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, not so much to be understood as to understand, not so much to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we awake to eternal life.  — St. Francis Of Assisi

Preaching , by Timothy Keller Approximately 6 hours reading time.  They say, 'It takes one to know one!'  If that's so then it's probably a good thing that this New York Times best-selling author is also a pastor and  preacher.   I went over this book three times, not because it is a 'comprehensive text' but for much the same compelling reason as Rev. Fred Fulford, who says it has helped the most of anything he has read since Bryan Chapel's 'Christ-Centered Preaching'."  Fred  estimates this to be the best book he has read on Preaching in a decade.   Timothy Keller offers up fresh insights on communicating the essence of the Christian faith, whether it is delivered via a Sunday sermon - or a chat in a coffee shop.  Well-known for his other solid books like, 'Walking With God Through Pain and Suffering', 'The Reason for God', and  'The Meaning of Marriage', Keller here offers another practical re

I feel fortunate to have been asked by David Solmes to reflect on literary works that would be of interest to leaders, recommended by leaders.  Whatever your age or stage I invite you to join me in the quest of reading more deeply and widely.  I don't know of any better way to enrich your own life than through the gift of reading. We are all starting from different places but we have converged at this point, this opportunity, to discover together.  Join in! A Review of  Courageous Leadership  by Bill Hybels (Approximately a 9-hour read.)  Rev. Kenton J. Kutney  [I wonder if this title isn't 'Courageous' because Hybels submitted the manuscript to his wife to edit out all his jokes?  Just a thought.] Courageous Leadership  is actually based on more than a 100 pages of sermons collected over all of Bill Hybels' time of "repeated challenges" at Willow Creek Church.  It has taken that long for this book to brew.  Picture this book as a life line thrown out to

An Introduction: Look, I know you're busy and reading takes up that precious time after which many other things are clamoring.  Even as you read this you may feel too rushed to continue. Please do.    I can hardly even get a reply from some leaders about books they'd recommend without hounding them repeatedly - let alone getting them to share insights they have gleaned. That troubles me. It makes me wonder just how much we're really reading and how widely.  How do you explore the interior world of your life,  peer into the mist of who we really are?  Can you Google that? (Actually, I did Google how to grow inwardly and came up with a site on ingrown toenails.)  One of the best ways to grow is through studies of other lives - the flow of time over an emerging life and the wisdom that it draws out.  We can learn a great deal from the lives of other leaders, through their study and through their stories.  The way to become a better  writer, and speaker, is to read and write

The following exerpts are an attempt to offer some comfort and insight into the inevitable loss we all experience as a part of life. It does not pretend to be the last word on the subject. With permission they are shared to extend hope to others. ...Our hearts are saddened to hear the news of your brother's passing.  I want to encourage you in these times of grieving when you wish so desperately that you could have done more to minister to his faith.   There's no end to that kind of thinking and the enemy just wants to get you down. You did the most important thing - you were there for him.  Visiting and sharing love.  Praying for him.  God is in control, not us. God loves him even more than you and He is faithful. Your brother is in His loving arms.  You didn't do anything wrong.  You ministered in love.   Jesus said when we visit the sick in their time of need it is as though we were doing it unto Him.    God bless you in this difficult time.  Ma

Living a Healthy Life With Chronic Conditions (Originally written for the leadership magazine Enrich ) Imagine an enthusiastic pastor who is a runner, a rock climber, a person who enjoys skiing, a practicer of martial arts, and loves getting out in his canoe to work on sermons ... and then having it all slip away to the point that dragging yourself out of bed before noon is a real accomplishment.   For years I have struggled with chronic illness but it came on fast and furious in a matter of months.   First a definition: “Hyper Eosinophilic Syndrome is an idiopathic condition (which means they don't know what, when, where or why) associated with marked peripheral eosinophilia and gastroenteritis.  ...HES involves other organs such as the heart, lungs, brain, and kidneys and generally has a progressive fatal course.” (Fauci, Harley, Roberts, cited  in Wallace and Apstein, 1997.)   I have been on at least 20 medications for symptoms like chronic pain and fatigue.  To help you put you

COMMENTARY BY Caitlin Thomas Caitlin Thomas is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. More young adults are opting to cohabit rather than marry or to delay marriage for financial reasons, such as debt, according to a recent  study published in Demography. However, National Marriage Week  presents a good opportunity to review how rigorous, long-term studies  have measured the substantial impact of marriage on financial stability, as well as relationship longevity and health outcomes. Here are five additional facts you may not know about cohabitation: 1. Cohabiting couples are more prone to break up (and break up for good) than married couples.   In the May 2003 issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family Study, Georgina Binstock and Arland Thornton  found that, in the first year of living together, couples who cohabited were eight times more likely to end their relationships than those who were married.  In the second and third years, those rates decreased to

"Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church. Our struggle today is for costly grace. Cheap grace means grace as bargain-basement goods, cut-rate forgiveness, cut-rate comfort, cut-rate sacraments; grace as the church’s inexhaustible pantry, from which it is doled out by careless hands without hesitation or limit. It is grace without a price, without cost… Cheap grace means grace as a doctrine, as principle, as system. It means forgiveness of sins as a general truth; it means God’s love as merely a Christian idea of God. Those who affirm it have already had their sins forgiven. The church that teaches this doctrine of grace thereby conveys such grace upon itself. The world finds in this church a cheap cover-up for its sins, for which it shows no remorse and from which it has even less desire to be free. Cheap grace is, thus, denial of God’s living Word, denial of the incarnation of the word of God. Cheap grace means justification of sin but not of the sinner. Because grace alone

From an Paschal homily by John Chrysostom: "Let all partake of the feast of faith. Let all receive the riches of goodness. Let no one lament their poverty, for the universal kingdom has been revealed. Let no one mourn their transgressions, for pardon has dawned from the grave. Let no one fear death, for the Saviour's death has set us free. He that was taken by death has annihilated it! He descended into Hades and took Hades captive! He embittered it when it tasted His flesh! And anticipating this, Isaiah exclaimed: "Hades was embittered when it encountered Thee in the lower regions." It was embittered, for it was abolished! It was embittered, for it was mocked! It was embittered, for it was purged! It was embittered, for it was despoiled! It was embittered, for it was bound in chains! It took a body and came upon God! It took earth and encountered heaven! It took what it saw, but crumbled before what can not seen! O death, where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy vi

To the year behind, lessons learned; to the year ahead, dream new dreams; this year's goal, to live in the moment. May I be calm, may I be strong, may I be content.