Author: Fr. Barnabas Powell

Fr. Barnabas is the parish priest at Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, Georgia. He is also host of Faith Encouraged Live on Ancient Faith Radio and author of the Faith Encouraged podcast.

The Healing Power of Beautiful Beatitudes

· Fr. Barnabas Powell
Recently, I was hearing one of my new convert’s confession, and she admitted that she was having trouble figuring out what to say. I sympathized with her and told her that was very common in the early days of participating in this spiritual discipline of regular confession. Hey, I’ve known folks who’ve been Orthodox their whole lives who struggle with the same thing! And do you know why? It isn’t because we…

Love Is Hard Work

· Fr. Barnabas Powell
I’ve heard this so many times: Why can’t I find love? What’s wrong with me? The expectations of some fairy tale notions wound us and wound our children. Add to that, the utter chaos in today’s society where love is reduced to mere feelings or, worse, just physical desire, and you have the perfect recipe for societal disaster! A perfect example of this warped understanding of love is the “Love is Love”…

“You Should Listen to Me”

· Fr. Barnabas Powell
“How come you were able to find this and not Ann?” With that question, my friend’s wife wondered at her husband’s ability to fix some tech problems more than the 12-year-old in the house! And his answer made me laugh out loud! He told his perplexed wife that he was 60 and their daughter was 12! Just goes to show you, experience really does help. The older I get, the more I…

The Dispute Is Always About Christ

· Fr. Barnabas Powell 1 Leave a Comment on %s
“It’s not a “what.” It’s a “Who.” And with that caveat, my initial lesson in becoming Orthodox began. You see, I always thought that the Christian Faith was about giving mental assent to certain doctrinal precepts and saying the “proper” words. I thought that I could argue and use “apologetics” to convince others that my version of Christianity, or even morality, was the “right” one. I was wrong. Oh, to be sure,…

The Power of a Peaceful & Sober Life

· Fr. Barnabas Powell
I remember the first time I heard the prayer “For our deliverance from all affliction, wrath, danger, and necessity, let us pray to the Lord.” I thought “What a curious prayer?” Why would the Church have us pray this at every litany? What is really being asked for here? It wasn’t long until some reading of the Fathers of the Church, listening to the hymns of the Church, and actually pressing out…

It’s A Marathon! Sunday Homily

· Fr. Barnabas Powell
The Christian life is a marathon, not a sprint. That means endurance is key. But how do we build endurance in the spiritual life? How do we stick with it to the end? This is such an important aspect to embrace so that we aren’t crushed when living the Faith gets hard or exhausting. Looking at our Gospel lesson we see Jesus praying the High Priestly Prayer of John 17 and in…

Boundaries Are Essential

· Fr. Barnabas Powell
Do you know the difference between a barrier and a threshold? It’s actually quite an important distinction. There’s actually some really important contemplation to be done here. Boundaries are necessary for healthy relationships BUT those boundaries need thresholds to stay healthy. I can’t tell you how many people have sat in my office talking about troubles with their relationships with family and heard them talk about how they never talk to their…

FORTH-Telling

· Fr. Barnabas Powell
Growing up in that sliver of Christian sub-culture of the American South in the 70s and 80s, that was the time of the Left Behind novels and constant speculation about who is the Anti-Christ and if Jesus’ Second Coming was just around the corner. Was Russia going to invade Israel? Is the bar code the “mark of the beast” from Revelation? Are you ready for the Rapture? Frankly, it was all both…

Doubting John The Baptist

· Fr. Barnabas Powell
Christ is risen! Paul Tillich once said, “Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.” Interesting! Real life is filled with moments of doubt and any honest person has to admit that doubt rears its ugly head in our lives from time to time. The mistake is two-fold – Either trying to ignore doubt or allowing doubt to swallow our life whole. Both reactions are wrong because they deny…

The Ascension Reveals Our True Purpose

· Fr. Barnabas Powell
Christ is Ascended! There was an article recently in the Wall Street Journal talking about the noticeable increase in the amount of Americans converting to Orthodoxy. And one of the more amazing discoveries is that these converts are embracing the Orthodox Faith in spite of having no cultural connection to traditional Orthodox cultures. And, a sizable amount of these converts are young men. Why is this happening, the reporter asked me when…