“Each night before bed I consider my day. I think of my sin, God’s evident grace, and his unflinching faithfulness. As I prayerfully inspect my own heart my head rests on the pillow of God’s promises. They are the comfort and means of rest to my restless soul.”   Recently my wife bought me a... Continue Reading

“One of the more publicly shared accounts of Pence’s transition from a Catholic youth minister who wanted to be a priest to an evangelical megachurch member came in 1994. That’s when he told the Indianapolis Business Journal about an intense period of religious searching that he underwent in college.”   Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick,... Continue Reading

“Big churches are fond of saying ‘every number is a person’, which is true. But when the crowd gets huge, sometimes people feel like numbers. In a healthy church, every person is a person, not a number.”   Small churches receive a lot from our megachurch friends. We read their books, sing their songs, use... Continue Reading

“The secret things” belong to God, not to us. “The secret things” are not our business because they are not our property; they are His. However, God has taken some of the secret plans of His mind and removed the secrecy, and such things do belong to us. He has taken the veil away. This... Continue Reading

“My children may need a vacation, but I need it more. I work harder than they do. I have greater responsibilities. I carry more stress. I have accumulated a lot more mileage. This leaves me with a deep need for rest.”   I need a vacation. Over the years I’ve learned to identify the signs. I’ve... Continue Reading

“Nobody had written a full-length study of it, but most recent histories agreed that early evangelicals challenged the South’s honor culture, especially the violence, drinking, and rigid hierarchies or gender, race, and class that were integral to it.”   I recently had a chance to interview Robert Elder, assistant professor of history at Valparaiso University,... Continue Reading

“If one set of servants of God are not fulfilling their God appointed duty – what about the others? The church of Jesus Christ and especially those who profess to be leaders within it? Where have all the prophets gone? In the week that I read about all the above events I happened to be... Continue Reading

“What possible logic is there in criticizing something as appealing as extramarital sex? These are questions that teenagers want answers to. They will make sacrifices, but they need to know that the sacrifices make sense. Our rules and norms in local churches must be presented as rules and norms that will lead to our children’s... Continue Reading

“In the new dispensation, traditional restrictions and attitudes are viewed as judgmental, moralistic forms of socially sanctioned aggression, especially against women and sexual minorities. These victims of sexuality have become the new secular saints.”   Surveying some of the sweeping social changes out there — from the legalization of same-sex marriage last year, to the... Continue Reading

“The Christian population was as many as 1.4 million in Iraq back in 2003 during the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, but that number has dwindled since. In October 2015, Aid to the Church in Need said that only 300,000 Christians were left, but MRG says that number is now down further to somewhere between 50,000 to... Continue Reading