It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials. Bruce Lee In math class, I always appreciated addition more than subtraction. It seemed easier to wrap my mind around adding more rather than taking away, especially when taking away brought the total into negative
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken” I recently rediscovered Robert Frost’s famous poem, “The Road Not Taken.” The person in the poem stands at a crossroads– does he take the
Christians often end up being overachievers. Excited about our faith, we want to serve God and others– and before we know it, our schedules are overly full, filled with groups and ministries and new church programs. Being involved in church and serving God and others is important– in fact, it’s
There is a lot of uncertainty in our world right now. We have no idea how or when this global pandemic will end, or how many times lockdowns will happen. We also don’t know what any of this means for our loved ones, our jobs, or the state of our
A few years ago, former Manhattanite and 30-something journalist Noelle Hancock wrote an article that ended up going viral: “Why I Gave Up a $95,000 Job to Move to an Island and Scoop Ice Cream.” The article caused such a pop culture and social media frenzy that she was interviewed
A few years ago, I discovered a song by Janis Joplin called “Mercedes Benz.” The lyrics go something like this (and you can listen along here): Oh Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz?My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amendsWorked hard all my lifetime, no help from
Most of us would agree that simplicity is a good thing. Even if we aren’t familiar with minimalism, we are all aware that culling our lives down to what matters most will only improve our mood and the quality of our lives. For Christians, this culling down also helps us
As we begin to think about what life may look like after a global pandemic (even while we are still dealing with the pandemic, at least in the U.S.), it can be very tempting to fall into “going back to normal.” This is especially true for those of us who
Note: This is a guest post written by Zach Labagh, Pastor at Allegheny Evangelical Lutheran Church in Mohnton, PA. In the last few months, due to the pandemic, I found myself and my family changing how we function completely. Our calendar that was full has now diminished to online and
Here on the Christian Minimalism blog, we’ve looked at minimalism in The Greatest Showman and A Christmas Carol. This time, we are looking minimalism in the movie Yesterday. In Yesterday, Jack Malick is a struggling singer-songwriter who plays gigs that are barely attended and booked by teacher-by-day, manager-by-night Ellie Appleton.