“Chuck Knows Church” is a fun set of videos produced by the Methodist Church’s General Board of Discipleship. Each one presents Chuck – he’s actually an actor by the name of Josh (don’t ask me why they didn’t just find a real person to talk about the church) – talking about one element or another of Christian faith and worship. Baptism, Parables, Potlucks 🙂 – Chuck takes up all these and more. In this episode, Chuck talks about Ash Wednesday, teaching or reminding us of a few of the essentials about Ash Wednesday. It runs just over two minutes, and so it may be a nice way to prepare...

I spend a lot of time thinking about the state of the church in North America. What’s going right. More often, what’s going wrong and what we should do about it. For that reason, it’s incredibly helpful to remember that Christ’s Church is a lot bigger than I am, or my denomination is, or even all the churches in my continent are. Jesus said (and we will hear these words in a couple of weeks) that when he was lifted up he would draw all persons to him (John 12:32). When I see a picture like this one – of a young woman in Hyderabad, India, offering prayers with her community – I am reminded, humbled, and...