It’s that time of year where many people will spend more time with family and friends and have more social interactions with co-workers.  This could either be exciting or anxiety inducing – or both.  The holidays have a way of highlighting both the beautiful and the strained, the joy and

If you are just starting out learning about the Bible and Christianity or trying to help someone get a good start, it can get overwhelming pretty fast. Not only is the Bible big, it’s not actually just one book.  The Bible contains sixty-six different books that are written by different

None of these give the whole picture, but are worth their place on the board. “The whole of the emotional case against capitalism turns on the unequal distribution of wealth. But is it peculiar to the nature of capitalism to concentrate wealth in a few hands? Here the first aspect truth is a

There are just three of you at the moment – seven, five, and a little brother due around Christmas.  Maybe there will be a four of you one day.  I hope so and I’m writing this already thinking of you. Some people will say that it is morbid to write

I have been involved in the lives of at-risk teens (white ones, brown ones, and in recent years, black ones) for a long time and over the years I have learned that there are certain things that they need to hear and certain things they don’t need to hear.  There

My wife and I are both pastors and get the opportunity on a pretty regular basis to marry people. When we are approached by someone we don’t know about officiating their wedding, this gives us a wonderful opportunity to get to talk to someone new about our faith and our

Many people these days are pretty negative about marriage.  For many, the concept of two people saving themselves for each other and then making a lifetime commitment to love and be faithful to each other for the rest of their lives (once referred to as the virtue and spiritual practice

On July 4th, 1776, representatives from thirteen British colonies on the North American continent formally declared their sovereignty and independence from the government they had always known and claimed the right to form their own government as they saw fit. This group of radicals and soon to be “freedom fighters”

Imagine dividing a tire into three pizza slice segments. That is one way to think of our spiritual vitality – a tire divided into the three segments of KNOWING, BEING, and DOING.  If one of them gets a little flatter than the others the tire jolts and bumps down the

I’m sure to some people this sounds ridiculously untrue, but if you are willing, stick with me for a moment. Imagine you are sitting at a table and the person across from you slides two portraits in front of you.  You don’t recognize the people in either of the pictures.