(The resting ground of my mother and father, Harry (1941-2010) and Levina (1943-2023), Steinbach Manitoba) Is it possible to be more spiritual than Jesus? I suspect this spirituality when someone dies and we utter sweetness like, “ Don't worry, that’s not really Bill there in the coffin. The Bill we know is up in heaven with Betty.” Or worse, “It doesn’t matter much what we do with his body, because that’s not really Bill.” Clearly something changed when Bill died, or else

"Family Group" by Leo Mol, Assiniboine Park, Winnipeg, 2026 In "Sweaty God Part 1" we heard the parable of two banquet planners. God is not like George, dashing about, sweaty and eager to solve our problems. God runs His banquet more like Jane, a servant leader from the back of the kitchen, anticipating, in, and behind everything happening on the banquet floor. So what happens when sweaty George prays to a God he thinks should be as eager to please as he is? After years of c

(The 2026 Crop of Timothy Seed at Sugar Creek, MB) When I was a teenager, I broke a girl’s leg. At a fun Sunday ball game, she was the pitcher, I the batter, and I drove the ball into her shin. Not proud of that. But what I remember most is what happened several days later. In our youth baptism class. our pastor, Andrew Plett, suggested we all gather round and pray for her. I have the vivid memory of her running out of the church healed, and I was greatly relieved. That w

(A bridge at St. John's Abbey, Minnesota, 2026) Has "church" has been reduced to "congregation" for us? The New Testament does not know about any congregation that is self-sufficient, making its own doctrinal decisions, authorizing its own leaders, and setting its own mission and vision. That congregation did not exist in the first century. This is why we have the New Testament. These books were not just assorted writings published by various authors hoping people would

A responsible person would launch a blog like this here Sugar Creek Theology by tackling a real catastrophe like AI-driven human extinction. But I begin by admitting I’m a one-man society for the abolition of acronyms. Yes, those little blights like GPA, EMMC, GDP, USA, SBC, EFC, CCCC, MCC, BLO, ABHE, CHEC and DGR littering our language that stand in when we no longer have patience for the names. Who has time to keep saying Canadian Council of Christian Charities all day long

Who thinks the world needs more writing? And if we do, don’t we have a machine for that? And for the Amish-adjacent among us who still bull-headedly insist on reading sentences written by someone, what makes you, Layton, of all people, think you should be the person talking? I don’t know about that. I suppose all writers have to struggle a tad with a bloated sense of self-importance, just to put themselves out there. But it is what it is, and I am sure you will put me in my