[on being a foster parent:] I know what some of you are saying: "I could never do that. I would get too attached." Let me remind you of something. Christianity is dying to one's self for the sake of Christ and others. Every time one of these children leaves our home,...
The plain fact is that the planet does need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind.
Riches, both material and spiritual, can choke you if you do not use them fairly. For not even God can put anything in a heart that is already full. One day there springs up the desire for money and for all that money can provide--the superfluous, luxury in eating,...
No doubt the objection may be raised that affirmation of nonviolence by the churches would be simplistic, that ethical judgments in the real world of the Powers are far too complex to adopt a fixed ethical stance. This objection, I must confess, was one of the main...
Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be broken. This beatitude cannot be found in Matthew 5's listing, but it certainly has clear biblical principle behind it. Dr. David Schroeder, in his study on discipleship, asserts that discipleship is not so much about...
Jesus' parable, therefore, shatters the stereotypes of social boundaries and class division and renders void any system of religious quid pro quo. Neighbors do not recognize social class. Neither is mercy the conduct of a calculating heart, nor eternal life the reward...
To belong is a vital need based in the spiritual nature of the human being. Contempt spits on this pathetically deep need. And, like anger, contempt does not have to be acted out in special ways to be evil. It is inherently poisonous. Just by being what it is, it is...
For many believers--and even communities of faith--congregational song has played an important role in shaping the content of faith and in facilitating the remembering of that faith. It has been a recurring testimony that in times of sorrow, crisis, or need, assurance...
One other picture that will always be a part of my memory of that week is the way people all across the land crowded into their places of worship. ...My fear is that we are beginning to think and act like we are on our own again and we can do it alone. ...We need God...
God loves you—we’ve heard it so much we barely even notice it, and yet…in the part of us that still needs to improve ourselves, have we heard it? In the part of us that stings with shameful memories or…just knows we don’t measure up, have we heard it? In the part of...