Christianity

Let’s Fill This Town with Servants

January 23, 2018 By Erin Beasley

| SERVANTS |

A FAMILY, with their eyes lifted UPWARD, and their love pressing OUTWARD, and their ambition pushing DOWNWARD, is UNSTOPPABLE.

Riley Sheehan, The Austin Stone

At the Austin Stone Worship Collective this year, we’ve focused on a single idea: filling our town (and ones nearby) with servants. We want to see Jesus lifted high, and one of the best ways to do that is through serving God, each other, and the communities in which we live. I like how Riley Sheehan frames the concept, explaining why I’m borrowing it.

To Whatever End

January 16, 2018 By Erin Beasley

But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or turn back from following you; for where you, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.

“Where you die, I will die, and their I will be buried. Thus may the Lord do to me, and worse, if anything but death parts you and me.”

Ruth 1:16–7, New American Standard Bible

I believe the phrase “to whatever end” finds its most popular use in a young adult fantasy series. It isn’t one I’ve read, so the words stick with me for a reason other than literature. For me, the words resonate because of where I currently reside, physically and spiritually.

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Book Review: The Original Storyteller

January 9, 2018 By Erin Beasley

Robert Carnes’ devotional The Original Storyteller: Become a Better Storyteller in 30 Days states its intended purpose outright. It is a guide meant to aid writers in both their craft and faith. “Writers” in this case largely refers to novelists and memoirists; the series of devotions focus on matters especially pertinent to them: character development, thematic motifs, foreshadowing, et cetera.

With Heart Abandoned

December 21, 2017 By Erin Beasley

I’ll stand

With arms high

And heart abandoned,

In awe of the One

Who gave it all.

—from The Stand, Hillsong United

I recently read a devotional that said encountering Jesus’ love prompts people to whisper promises and make vows. The idea isn’t wrong, and yet, it seems somehow incomplete. When I read the Bible, I discover people who encounter God and abandon everything in response.

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