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Author: Ellsworth Kalas

Ellsworth Kalas ~ Singing As If It Were Easter

There’s no question but that the first line ought to be the first line – “Christ the Lord is risen today” – because all else follows from that premise. If you accept that fact (and God have mercy on you if you don’t), it’s easy to “raise your joys and triumphs high,” and to know as you do so that the “heavens and earth reply.”

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Ellsworth Kalas ~ Wesleyan Songs for Lent

Wesley leads us to the heart of Lent and to the heart of every day of seeking the fullness of life in Christ: such a longing to please our Lord that we want the Holy Spirit to check us at the first sense of pride, wrong desire, or the wandering will — anything, that is, that might “quench the kindling fire.”

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Ellsworth Kalas ~ Songs for Sinners

Charles Wesley wrote songs for sinners. For those who were lost in sin, his hymns promised salvation, and for those who had come to Christ they were hymns that celebrated the day when it happened… These hymns are as true as ever and it is only our spiritual and doctrinal naivete that keeps us from seeing it.

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Ellsworth Kalas ~ Wesleyans Sing in the New Year

We Methodists don’t “believe” in backsliding, as some have accused us, but we’re honest enough to confess a fact when it stares us in the face, and we’re sensitive enough to our spiritual condition that we can tell the difference.

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Ellsworth Kalas ~ Singing all the Wesleyan Way

The first verse of “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” is an invitation to join the angels who announced Christ’s birth. In fact, Wesley wants all nations to rise and “join the triumph of the skies” in the tumultuous news, “Christ is born in Bethlehem!” Notice the exclamation point. Wesley was inclined that way. It’s hard to end all your sentences with periods when your soul is on the rise.

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Ellsworth Kalas ~ Singing all the Way

Wesleyan Accent is excited to welcome Ellsworth Kalas who will be contributing regular reflections on Wesleyan hymns. His first highlights Charles Wesley’s wonderful Advent hymn, “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus.”

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Holy and Blameless: My Kind of Church

Recently I came upon a book of advice for pastors.  It’s interesting and enjoyable but I was troubled by the author’s attitude toward what he saw as the typical church.  He had an adversarial attitude,

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Give Me Your Eyes

As I was leaving our neighborhood bank recently, someone at a desk near the door said, “Have a good day.”  I was pleased to be wished a good day, so I paused to thank someone,

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