anyone who makes the pilgrimage to L’Abri realizes that the ethos out of which his work emerged was nourished by his wife, Edith. She, with her gifts of hospitality, didn’t just “support” Francis: she made what he did possible. She cultivated the space of imagination that birthed the vision and ideas (well captured in Edith Schaeffer’s history of

I had always guessed that books garnered readers; I never realized they would also generate friendships.

Webber, Robert. Ancient-Future Worship: Proclaiming and Enacting God’s Narrative. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2008. Makes the case that historic (“ancient”) worship is precisely the gift we need for a faithful witness in our postmodern (“future”) context. A significant influence on my own thinking.

And so: Come to the feast that is worship so that you can go, renewed and rehabituated by the Spirit, and say “Amen” in everything you love.

In the language of the Bible, which is the language of the Church, to bless the Kingdom is not simply to acclaim it. It is to declare it to be the goal, the end of all our desires and interests, of our whole life, the supreme and ultimate value of all that exists. To bless is to accept in love, and to move toward what is loved and accepted. The

The God who is love reorders our loves, bending our deepest desires back toward himself, so that we might rightly love our neighbors for his sake. The Spirit rehabituates our loves not merely for the sake of renovation but so that we can love even our enemies. This is what we were made for: to love what God loves. Our telos brings us back to our

Thankfully, we pursue God with God. We love because he first loved us.

Let’s think creatively about rhythms and rituals and routines that would let the good news sink into us throughout the week. I’m reminded of an investment banker in Manhattan who spearheaded the practice of listening to the public reading of Scripture with his colleagues on Wall Street. Or of teachers who have committed to the practice of morning

our worship rituals train our hearts and aim our desires toward God and his kingdom so that, when we are sent from worship to take up our work, we do so with a habituated orientation toward the Lover of our souls.