Resources by Charlie Wingard
Don’t let your life run to waste! Small bits of time add up, and especially over a lifetime. William G.T. Shedd observes: “Small spaces of time become ample and great by being regularly and faithfully employed. It is because time is wasted so regularly and uniformly, and not because it is wasted in such large amounts, that so much of human life runs to waste.” – William G.T. Shedd, Homiletics and Pastoral Theology. 11th ed. (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1902), 394.
Read MoreIs there a finer contemporary essayist than Joseph Epstein? This morning I read his essay “The Kindergarchy: Every Child a Dauphin,” in which he reflects upon the sad outcomes of a society in which children rule, and are pampered and spoiled like “direct descendants of the Sun King.” As he’s wont to do, Epstein mixes social commentary with humor. I chuckled at this personal anecdote, I suppose from the 1940s: “I recall only once telling my mother that I was bored. ‘Oh,’ she said, a furtive smile on her lips, ‘why don’t you bang your head against the wall. That’ll take your mind off your boredom.’ I never mentioned boredom again.” – in Joseph Epstein, A Literary Education and Other…
Read MoreA warning against worldliness from French Protestant pastor and poet Antoine de Chandieu (1534-1591): Never having and always desiring, Such are the consequences for him who loves the world. The more he abounds in honor and riches, The more he is seen aspiring for more. He does not enjoy what belongs to him: He wants, he values, he adores what other people have. When he has everything, it is then that he has nothing. Because having everything, he desires everything still. – from Scott M. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors: Pastoral Care and the Emerging Reformed Church, 1536-1609 (Oxford: 2013), 98.
Read MoreMy 2012 review of Eugene Genovese’s Miss Betsy is posted on the OPC’s Ordained Servant website.
Read MoreA leader among French Protestants, Antoine de Chandieu (1534-1591) fled to Geneva after the bloodshed of St. Bartholomew’s Day and was added to the Company of Pastors. One of his prayers: “O God, you who are powerful and awesome, you who are always the same, look thus upon my captivity. Change my weakness into power, my fear into joy and confidence, my servitude into freedom.” – from Scott M. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors: Pastoral Care and the Emerging Reformed Church, 1536-1609 (Oxford: 2013), 58.
Read MoreGenevan pastor Simon Goulart (1543-1628) offers this advice to a friend: 1. Live with other people as if God were watching. Speak with God as if others were listening. 2. Endure with greatest patience what you are not able to change and walk with God (by whose authority all things occur) without complaining. Evil and wretched is the person who follows after the commander of Hell. 3. In times of activity as much as in periods of rest, all dimensions of life ought to be beautiful. 4. Commit your way to God. Hope in him and he will do it. Goulart adds: “[Only] eternal things endure.” – from Scott M. Manetsch, Calvin’s Company of Pastors: Pastoral Care and the Emerging…
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