by jakeowensby | Jan 6, 2023 | Baptism, Baptism of Our Lord, Conversion, Matthew 3:13-17
Some years before we met, my friend S- pastored a Baptist church in Paris. He invited another American preacher, also fluent in French, to cross the Atlantic and deliver a series of talks on the Christian life. The guest speaker’s first teaching focused on the...
by jakeowensby | Jan 10, 2020 | Matthew 3:13-17
If you’re trying to please God, I really wish you would stop. That’s not what real love looks like. It’s just people-pleasing on a cosmic scale. And people pleasing misconstrues love as a transaction. People-pleasers are some of the nicest, most helpful people you’ll...
by jakeowensby | Jan 11, 2019 | Luke 3:15-17, 22-23
Somewhere along the line my name changed. I dimly recall my elementary school classmates calling me “Jacob.” It’s the name on my birth certificate and on all my official documents. When my mom was pregnant she had put it at the top of her boy-name list after thumbing...
by jakeowensby | Feb 19, 2017 | 7 Epiphany A, Matthew 5:38-48, Uncategorized
[Listen to Audio] “Choosing to get pregnant in a war is the closest experience I’ve had to the experience of getting baptized.” In her wartime pregnancy, Sara Miles began a journey into suffering and love whose redemptive meaning cracked open in her Baptism....
by jakeowensby | Oct 14, 2016 | Luke 18:1-8, Proper 24 C, Uncategorized
[Listen to Audio] Barbara Brown Taylor writes about exploring Organ Cave. Or more accurately, she talks about what the dark taught her in that cave. Hearing that Taylor was researching the spiritual significance of darkness, her new-found friend Rockwell and his wife...
