Recently the leaders in our church and I talked about ‘outreach.’ As we were discussing how to organize a part of our mission we considered whether the focus of our efforts should be primarily on preserving what exists or increasing… Continue reading

Driving home in the darkness last night, I took note of the lights. I saw a house where the decorating was a work of beauty, symmetrical white lights strung neatly, tastefully done, that showed an artist’s eye and a craftsman’s… Continue reading

A person of immature understandings recently said, “I don’t pray much because I believe God has already decided what will happen.” She were sincere, but had missed much of what the Bible teaches us about how God works. An authority… Continue reading

When I was a little boy, my Dad took me to Wyoming, to remote areas far off of the roads, where we visited shepherds tending large flocks of sheep! Yes, it’s true. There in the mountains near Buffalo, WY, were… Continue reading

Every generation has ‘marker‘ days, days on which an event that changed the course of history occurred. My generation will always remember September 11, 2001 simply as “9/11” the day that terrorists brought their hatred to the United States –… Continue reading

Joy in serving? Groundhog Day, a 1993 comedy, is a parable. Seen it? Bill Murray plays the role of Phil Connors, a TV reporter who finds himself in a time loop, reliving Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney, PA, over and over… Continue reading

I long for peace; not peace merely expressed as in the absence of conflict, but the peace that is described by the Hebrew word, “shalom.” Shalom, translated most often as ‘peace,’ has a richer meaning including wholeness, completeness, prosperity, settledness… Continue reading

Those ‘personalized’ letters that come from some far-off credit card company that open with ‘Dear Jerry,’ as though they came from a friend, make me laugh out loud. The marketers that work to create the illusion of personalization recognize a… Continue reading

Yesterday, I was temporarily overwhelmed by human need. Everywhere I looked there were challenges, disappointments, and sins. The weight of it pressed on me as though a heavy burden was laid on my shoulders. As I conducted a Bible Study… Continue reading

Minkaye is a man who lived his entire life in the Amazonian jungle. Most of his life he lived just as his ancestors lived for a thousand years, with little awareness of the greater world. Then, the missionaries who lived… Continue reading