Our youngest, Duke, was one of these tender branches grafted into the faith that had been nurtured in him from birth.
Duke took the oath he was making seriously.
A week prior our son wrestled with whether or not he was actually ready to make such a hefty proclamation. His reservation? An unanswered (and I would add unanswerable) question that
Do you remember standing tall and straight against a door jamb etched with pencil markings as a child? Was there a spot in the family home marking years of growth? Perhaps you had a growth chart, able to be folded away and moved as you relocated. If measuring height was part of your childhood, you’ll know that feeling in your
So, why do we make this annual trek to mark Jeremy’s birth, death, Christmas, Easter and other special occasions? I guess somehow in the ritual of the rhythm of returning to the grave we find comfort as we remember. We seek closure. We find consistency. We seek to make sense out of a situation that otherwise makes little to no
But here at the site of the empty tomb is our leap beyond lip service. When we take up the mantle from Mary and open our mouth to the truth. There is something bursting below the surface. A little seed of germination. This is Easter…we are the outliers who believe that despite all the impossibility of being raised from death
Now that light has dawned, one cannot simply stand and look at a symbol of defeat and the past. New life has broken in and we are not allowed to just look; we are invited and commissioned to go and tell.
It seems, then, that God would not want anything bad to happen in the world, and he certainly has the power to stop them from happening. Yet bad things—unimaginably horrific things—happen every day. Over many centuries, philosophers and theologians have attempted to solve this problem by explaining why God would choose to create a world like ours, where humans
Today is April 16. Every year I write something in memory of my Mama Sarah and in honor of my mom, Maxine Stoddard. On this day 37 years ago, my Mama Sarah was murdered by my biological father; at that point, many lives were forever changed. She was murdered on my mom’s birthday (April 16) and buried on mine (April 18). You can read
The promise is not that we would be safe but that we would be faithful. The angel of God does not always spare us from tragedy or troubles, but enables us to look at tragedy troubles through different eyes.
I find myself walking in the semi-dark, friends clustered around me. Our hands are full, carrying materials to preserve a corpse. It was a long Sabbath. We were supposed to rest, so we did. But there’s no rest from thoughts of despair and grief. They follow you into every room you enter. Like we had followed Him. We saw the
We must be honest about our failures and sins. None of us lives up to the standards our faith demands. But this doesn’t mean we cease wrestling with and proclaiming the Word.
Although email and video conferencing are effective tools, there is nothing quite like meeting face to face – praying, eating, laughing, planning, hoping, and learning together.
Take some time each day this week to thank God for the ways he is cleansing you.
Funny, the things we can learn from friends who do drugs. In the world of meth users, tweaking is a thing. That’s the term users use for the frantic and compulsive behaviors that tend to surface when you’re strung out on meth. Tweaking is obsession with an activity — any activity — like cleaning or searching through drawers or picking
As we enter a season of offering thanks in the United States, consider what proportion of your prayers express gratitude.
The church has always been challenged in maintaining an effective and healthy witness of the faith beyond the walls of its buildings. Every revival throughout the history of the church was started because the fellowship of believers was awakened by the Spirit to witness to their faith in public settings. This movement from the private (or inward) faith behavior to an intentional engagement
When we participate together in worship, we not only allow God to form and shape our hearts, we allow other Christians to serve as channels of God’s grace in our lives.
The bravery, chutzpah, faithfulness, love, and kindness of these women remind us that leadership in the kingdom of God comes in many forms, if only we have eyes to see.
We serve because God calls us through his Word to participate in his mission of reaching out and loving people from every nation and culture.
My experience in the Eternal City taught me three important things about evangelism.
Even though these men stood at a distance, Jesus saw them. Jesus made a choice to see these men.
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