Last Thursday, I was behind a lady at the grocery store. It’s a national chain, but not one of those fancy all organic places where they offer free samples of tofu ice cream and sushi. It’s the “bag your own stuff” kind of place where you can buy enough beans to feed the French resistance more »
Ten Errors of First-Time Deacons
Welcome to life as a deacon! Always exciting, inspiring, fulfilling and self-satisfying. Wait… that’s not exactly true. Let’s start over. Welcome to life as a deacon! Much different than you expected (that’s a little closer to the truth). As you begin your ministry as a deacon, here are a few common errors to avoid for the sake of more »
He’s Everything from A to Z
AUTHOR of my everything, my story A to Z BRIGHT AND MORNING STAR above, my blinded eyes can see COMFORTER of weary souls, COMPANION of the lost DELIVERER, DEFENDER despite the cruel cost EXALTED ONE who stooped to save, found in a humble place FAITHFUL ONE of Glory who came to me in grace GUARDIAN more »
Worst Day Ever
I miss her.
Do you remember her? Our rhetoric was imperfect, but there were guardrails in the grooves of our brain that kept us from the dregs of profanity. Do you remember the America where leaders respected each other, in spite their differences? I miss the trust that people had in each other’s decency, when we bolstered our more »
5 Easy Ways to Share Your Faith
“I hear what you’re saying about sharing my faith but I have an allergic reaction to it, I break out in a cold sweat when I even think about prying my way into somebody’s eternal destiny and trying to get them to do what they need to do.” For many believers, the term “evangelism” evokes more »
Animal Prayer
The Big Story
We were born with a deep sense of eternity. It’s inside us It’s echoes through our doubts and struggles for meaning and hope But we must ask… IS this life all that there really is? Or are we shaped and formed by a living God There’s too much beauty, too much wonder, too much extravagance more »
Lamentations Before Sunrise
We are all unwilling recluses. We know the trifles of distraction that pull us away from the tethers of reality In the morning, we wake from restless sleep and fearful understanding the darkness covers and we cry in the GethseMany of our aloneness. And we taste the same legions of despair. There will be a more »
Forgiveness is More about You Than Them
All was well in the Amish community in Lancaster Pennsylvania until a deranged man mercilessly shot 10 Amish girls and then turned the gun on himself in 2006. How did they respond to this shocking loss? Amazingly, the Amish community didn’t blame. Instead, they reached out with grace and compassion toward the killer’s family. They more »