Go

Contact Us

  • Phone: (612) 338-6500
  • Email: 
  • Mailing Address: 1501 West 54th Street, Minneapolis, MN, 55419

 

 

Blog

Divided or United?

1

Posted by John Sommerville on

Divided or United? In recent days our nation has witnessed the cowardly actions of those who promote hatred, bigotry, prejudice and a message of racial superiority. This is not the Good News Jesus preached. St. Paul once challenged a church struggling to get along and set apart their...

Continue reading…

Sankofa - A Pilgrimage

Posted by John Sommerville on

“This is significant,” said John Perkins as he looked out on a group of thirty Twin Cities area pastors. It was, he said, the equal participation of black and white that struck him as unusual. We had met with Dr. Perkins at the midpoint of a journey to some of the most important...

Continue reading…

Tags: sankofa

Prophets can be Cranky

Posted by John Sommerville on

The primary role of the Old Testament prophet was not predicting the future, but telling the truth. Prophets can be cranky. They can make us feel uncomfortable. They ruin dinner parties reminding us of things we’d rather forget. Dr. Martin Luther King was a modern day prophet. He spoke...

Continue reading…

What About Doubt

Posted by John Sommerville on

A friend emailed me this week with a thought on faith and doubt. He’s a thinker and, like many, struggles with doubt. Over the years he’s been helped by the answers theologians and philosophers have proposed to his questions. He has also told me that he views faith as a relationship...

Continue reading…

Tags: doubt

A New Year's Challenge

Posted by John Sommerville on

A New Year’s Challenge: Just five minutes a day. That’s all it takes. For what? To connect with God. To find peace, meaning and purpose in life. To acquire wisdom and guidance for daily decisions. To discover strength to face difficulties and hope for eternity. How? By reading...

Continue reading…

John's Top Ten

Posted by on

The Ten – works of faith and fiction that have influenced and moved me (plus a few runner ups) Mere Christianity – C.S. Lewis: Cliché? Sure, but no one so consistently gets to the heart of a matter and says it so memorably. Once finished, move right on to The Screwtape...

Continue reading…

Waking up next Wednesday

7

Posted by John Sommerville on

Wednesday morning the most contentious political election in our lifetime will be over. Both campaigns predict dire consequences if their candidate isn’t elected, but I’m not buying it. That isn’t to say it doesn’t matter who wins. But it doesn't matter nearly as much as...

Continue reading…

Is Honesty The Best Policy?

Posted by John Sommerville on

Is honesty the best policy? Of course it is. Or at least that’s the conventional wisdom. But the philosopher Immanuel Kant disagreed. Honesty, he argued, isn’t the best policy, it’s the only policy. Kant was concerned that if we only focus on what “works,” it will...

Continue reading…

Tags: obey, blog honesty

Why Heaven Matters

2

Posted by John Sommerville on

Why Heaven Matters For some time, I’ve become increasingly convinced that our culture undervalues the hope of heaven. The images of harps and clouds and guys in white robes seems odd and unattractive. Of course that’s just a caricature. But heaven is difficult to describe. A place...

Continue reading…

Be Inauthentic

Posted by John Sommerville on

Be Inauthentic You’re probably thinking “typo,” or that I’m totally wacked, but I’m serious. Like tolerance, “authenticity” (or put another way, “being true to yourself”) is a core cultural virtue. To be honest I cringe when people talk...

Continue reading…

Tags: authentic, blog, inauthentic