One of the most serious dangers confronting those who minister in the city is that their lives come to be built on frenzy and compulsive busyness. This usually leads to a lack of focus, a tendency to accumulate more and more things, a collapse of reflection, and the...
Some people grew up in the Charismatic Movement. I grew up in the Ostrich Movement--stick your head in the sand and ignore the Holy Spirit. Out of sight, out of mind. If you do this long enough maybe he'll go away and you won't have to deal with it. The only problem...
The truth that the cross of Christ embodies about us is certainly that we are loved by God, but that we are loved as prodigals, as problematic creatures, as beings whose alienation from God, from one another, from ourselves, and from the inarticulate creation is so...
My biggest problem with the focus in Christianity on getting people saved for the afterlife is how often it results in arrested development. It falls prey to the same mistake Adam and Eve made: assuming we can skip the hard work of growing up and just go straight to...
While Christianity does not give specific answers to specific social problems, it does shed light on these problems, and we all must try as best we can to carry our Christian insights out into the streets and byways of life.
Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult. Because...
The happiness which brings enduring worth to life is not the superficial happiness that is dependent on circumstances. It is the happiness and contentment that fills the soul even in the midst of the most distressing of circumstances and the most bitter environment....
Churches are filled with “undiscipled disciples,” as Jess Moody has called them. Most problems in churches today can be explained by the fact that members have not yet decided to follow Christ.
We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say, “It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.” Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.
Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least...