When a pastor leaves a church, we tend to ask a whole group of questions. Why couldn’t we keep him? Why did the elders force him out? What was the deacons problem with the pastor? Why did he choose to leave us? He was only here for four years. Was there something else we could … More Why God Takes Some Pastors Away
An excerpt from the book, Experience the Passion of Christ. Good Friday is a day of meditation and prayer. I will be reading about the events of the last hours of Christ on the cross, thinking and praying about the messages I have given in the past and helping my grandchildren to embrace the wonder of the … More A Good Friday Meditation for Worshipers of the King
I was raised in one of those traditions that observed Lent as a solemn season of preparation for the glories of Easter and the resurrection. Ash Wednesday marks 40 days–corresponding to Israel’s 40 years in the wilderness and Jesus’ 40 days in the same place–till Maundy Thursday of Passion Week. The ashes remind us that … More A Maundy Thursday Meditation
May your glory be laid in the dust.May you decrease so that He might increase. And may your delight in Him make you not even noticethe disappearance of your glory.
The shortest chapter in the Psalms and the Bible is Psalm 117. It is also the middle chapter in the Bible with exactly 594 chapters before it and after it. Don’t go overboard with that observation. There is nothing inspired about the chapters of the Bible. But this is interesting–It is a Psalm centered in … More Psalm 117: Shortest Chapter in the Bible
The latest issue of The Voice of the Martyrs arrived today. There are pictures and stories of people being baptized in rivers and other places in Vietnam, Somalia, Ethiopia, displaced Somalis in America, others in South Asia, all turning their lives to Christ. Despite the mainstream media’s silence, independent journalists have been reporting for the … More The Expanding Christian Majority
Robert Coles was a Harvard professor who wrote a number of best selling books in the 1980’s and ’90’s on the moral development of children that shocked the educational establishment. In an article appearing in Christianity Today (Feb. 6, 1987) he made a number of observations that powerfully underscored my 50 year obsession with older … More Why I Read Old Books
Poet and essayist Heather Cadenhead publishes a monthly newsletter about her life as a writer and mother of two sons, one of whom is diagnosed with non-speaking autism. In an article titled, “The Road He Took: A Lenten Reading of Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’” contrasts the Frost’s “fork in the road” with the temptation of … More The Long Game for Your Soul
I don’t know what I am grimacing about in the image frozen in the video, but, as I have said before, these videos are pretty raw. They are almost all recorded in the early morning hours, often when insomnia is keeping me awake, in one take and no script.
An African American pastor friend who I greatly love and respect from the Chicago suburbs called me a couple of days ago and asked me, an interesting question: “Who is the prophet to whom the modern culture can turn? No, that’s not it . . .” He was struggling to actually state what his real … More We Need Some Weeping Prophets
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