I’m at a much more complex stage of parenting. The girls are now growing out of the innocent-keep-them-in-a-glorious-bubble stage. They are learning about life. While many new circumstances are great opportunities for Matt and I to have a “teaching moment” and see how the gospel can be applied, it’s also painful to see our kids... Continue Reading

But is it wrong to wish that Christians, who have discovered the value of wholesome food and the farming practices that produce it, would translate their choices about diet and carbon footprints into congregations and pastors more circumspect about cities and more respectful of the fly-over sectors of the greatest nation on God’s green earth?... Continue Reading

We are a fallen race. That means that we—as well as our children—are born with deep-seated antipathy toward what God made us to be. There is a brokenness in our bones that groans to be healed. As the Psalmist has it, we have all been brought forth in iniquity and conceived in sin (Psalm 51:5).... Continue Reading

A Demanding Schedule: Cara has found that full-time pastoral ministry isn’t all that different from life as a doctor. “My family doctor and I have often commiserated together when we discussed the similarities between our lives and the chaotic family schedules we manage,” Cara confesses. (79) We know this and they know this: Pastor’s don’t... Continue Reading

Aldrin wanted to give people on Earth something to think about. He was planning to broadcast his Lord’s Supper, but skittish NASA worried that atheist leader Madalyn Murray O’Hair would sue it for hurting not only the legendary separation of church and state but the definitely real separation of Earth and moon.   Pardon me,... Continue Reading

So, we should speak up when the government decides it knows best about our personal information and freedom. We cannot sit idly by while they decide to store the phone numbers and names of people we call, touch the private parts of 13-year olds in the name of airport security (using a system that is... Continue Reading

Like an adult in a jetliner is instructed to don the oxygen mask herself before tending to her child, so those entrusted with the care of the congregation are to make sure they are in good position themselves. This is especially important when we realize that the congregation is the “church of God.” I heard... Continue Reading

With the advent of Internet technology, with its near universal reach and its promise of secrecy, pornography has been weaponized. In some sectors, especially of our young male populations, it is nearly universal. This universality is not, contrary to the propaganda of the pornographers themselves, a sign of its innocence but of its power. In... Continue Reading

We can talk about prayer, teach about prayer, write about prayer, and even lead corporately in prayer – all without anyone knowing that personal prayer is sporadic at best. John, a leader in a church I assisted as a consultant, admitted to me what I’d heard before from seminary students and church leaders alike: “Dr.... Continue Reading

Theologians get real tight in their making of distinctions, and when I say I don’t believe in miracles today, I don’t believe in the tight kind of miracle in the very narrow sense where a miracle is defined as a work that occurs in the external perceivable world; an extraordinary work in the external perceivable... Continue Reading