The Healing Power Of Honoring Others by Elizabeth Glass Turner

Recently I read a moving account of one German woman’s actions and the impact that they had. A 92-year-old man living in New Jersey received a three-page letter from her in which she apologized for wrongs long past. Reading it, he wept.  As the article recounts about the letter writer, “Doris Schott-Neuse…told him how her grandfather had acquired Hirschmann’s family home under the Nazis, expressing her shame

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When You Don’t Have The Words by Andy Stoddard

Have you ever felt like there was something that you needed to say for Jesus, but you didn’t have the words?  You didn’t know what you should say or how you should say it?  I’ve been there.  I think we’ve all been there. At times, we talk ourselves out of witnessing to someone or saying something to someone, because of fear within us about what

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Boundaries And Forgiveness by Aaron Perry

Jesus taught that if, when offering a gift to God at the altar, you remember a brother or sister has something against you, you should go and be reconciled and then return to offer your gift (Matt. 5:24). I get the impression that reconciliation is the gift God intends to give the worshipper—even before a gift has been brought to

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I Am Who The I AM Says I Am | Part III

What is our Hamartiology? Bill Arnold’s third question to establish a “world view story” has to do with “What has gone wrong? What is our Hamartiology?” (As a review, Harmartiology means our understanding of sin, or what’s gone wrong). We flow immediately from our “orienting story” in Genesis 1-2 to a “dys-orienting” one in Genesis Chapter 3. Yes, this can be seen

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Agents Of Hope, Not Optimism

Scripture Focus: It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to the Most High. It is good to proclaim your unfailing love in the morning, your faithfulness in the evening, accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, a harp, and the melody of a lyre. You thrill me, Lord, with all you have done for me! I sing

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I Am Who The I AM Says I Am | Part II

What is our cosmology? When my son Joshua was very young and I would put him to bed at night, he would say this, “Daddy, tell me a story. BUT make sure to get me into it.”  We are indeed people of story. But first and foremost, we need an orienting story. A compelling story from which to stand and gaze

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Make Disciples Who Will Make Disciples

Many local churches I know have as a part of their mission statement, We need to be deliberate in our churches in “making disciples  who will make disciples.” It rolls off our tongues so easily, but is demanding in actualizing. As I insisted in my last article, we must nurture and cherish the bond between word and deed, ideas and

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I Am Who The I AM Says I Am | Part I

Being retired from Indiana Wesleyan University means I no longer need to prepare 12 lectures a week or to lead faculty meetings or solve student issues as an administrator. Now, I have time to read for leisure.  The second-best book that I have read this year was Boys in the Boat. A Riveting Read: Boys in the Boat Boys in

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Hope: The Singers of Life

Scripture Focus: Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. Hebrews 10:23-24 (NLT) This month we will focus on the theological virtue of hope. Faith and hope are intimately linked in the

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Evangelism And Discipleship

Georgia Harkness was once considered one of our most outstanding theologians. She was certainly a brilliant thinker and spoke prophetically to the church. Here is such a word: “We must rescue evangelism from the red-light district of the ecclesiastical community.” That’s putting it unquestionably straight. Evangelism has been prostituted for money and personal gain. That’s the reason we need to

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A Prophet Present Among Them

This is the season in many denominations when changes take place in clergy leadership. I’m in a good bit of conversation with clergy and lay leadership about the nature of ordained ministry. I urge clergy and lay leadership to read and consider chapter 2 of Ezekiel as a part of the experience of “clergy appointment.”  A few years ago I

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Life Beyond The Headlines

Don’t believe the story.  So went the surprising proclamation of DL Moody –  Some day you will read in the papers that D.L. Moody of East Northfield, is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now; I shall have gone up higher, that is all, out of this

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Falling From Grace?

It may not be good writing or even good grammar, but I deliberately put a question mark after the title of this article, Falling from Grace? This is a follow-up to my last article where I also put a question mark in the title Once saved always saved? Oh! Both, “falling from grace,” and “once saved always saved,” have to

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