Even with so much suffering around us, I rejoice to have witnessed much suffering tangibly relieved by real-life, creative ministries to the poor. What more is still possible?
A Christmas present from our team to the many who are grieving the loss of a loved one this holiday season. May you rejoice to know what is coming and feel peace at what is already here.
Would we be willing to give up our ideas this Christmas? Or is it too hard to believe in a God that asks hard things of us—unpopular things and countercultural things?
Is there a dollar amount of donations to the poor sufficient to allay concerns about how the faith spends its money?
We don’t often speak of the short period when Jesus was an unborn baby Himself. Maybe we should?
With a cultural war raging around us, perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us to see it leaking now and then into our congregations and classes. But that doesn’t make it any easier to know how to respond.
It wasn’t just apathy or failure to perform religious ceremonies for which ancient Israel faced God’s judgments. It was also what they failed to do for each other.
Ahmad Corbitt’s October 2022 talk to military chaplains challenged not just secular-minded activists, but also a common set of stories sometimes held by believing and sustaining church members.
Why have so many come to embrace a spirituality devoid of any specific bids upon our hearts and minds? Could our elevation of “self” above anything and everything else have anything to do with it?
The events of this last week bear witness to something troubling all right—but it’s not quite the trouble you’ve been hearing about in the national media or on Twitter.
When was the last time you felt awe for what you see, feel, and experience around you? As easy as it is to fixate on the negatives around us, don’t miss out on the sweetness of relishing the jaw-dropping goodness and beauty all around us too.
Stepping away from a community of faith hurts in both directions. Could a deeper recognition of that pain help draw our hearts together again?
