Contemporary society assumes that we make a choice: one member of a household will be the “homemaker” and the other the “breadwinner” (i.e., in the marketplace generating income to sustain the home). ...
There are also many historical examples of Christians faithfully using political means to fight for justice and righteousness. William Wilberforce: Politician and Abolitionist William Wilber...
Hebrews 13:16, Micah 6:8, Luke 6:38, Proverbs 19:17, James 1:27
On the fifteenth of each month, Alicia has thirty dollars withdrawn from her checking account to sponsor Belyse, a beautiful, brown-eyed girl from Kenya, who then gets school and a hot meal each day. ...
Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intellige...
Few voices captured the brutal reality of enslavement as powerfully as Sojourner Truth. Truth endured profound mistreatment and indignities as an enslaved woman. A severe beating left her reliant on a...
Isaiah 43:18-19, John 21:17, Luke 22:61-62, Romans 5:3-5, Micah 7:8, Psalm 73:26, Proverbs 24:16
A common trait of human beings is a fear of failure. Most of us find ways of coping with it, but whenever failure rears its ugly head, it’s difficult not to experience the sting of feeling like we are...
Here is the uncomfortable truth: Humans run to a much slower evolutionary clock than our inventions. To use an engineering term, we are the “gating factor” that keeps a process from running faster. It...
Matthew 25:35-40, James 1:19-27, Luke 10:33-37, John 21:15-17, 1 John 3:17-18, Ruth 2:8-12, Acts 9:36-42, 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Luke 6:38
In 1947 huge crowds came to hear a thirty-two-year-old Californian preach at mass evangelistic rallies throughout China. Although Bob Pierce had no knowledge of Chinese language or culture, his messag...
An individual can march for peace or vote for peace and can have, perhaps, some small influence on global concerns. But the same individual is a giant in the eyes of a child at home. If peace is to be...
The challenge of leadership when trying to generate adaptive change is to work with differences, passions, and conflicts in a way that diminishes their destructive potential and constructively harness...
I became interested in the subject of transition outer changes around 1970 when I was going through some difficult inner and outer changes. Although I gave up my teaching career because of those chang...
Philippians 2:3-4, Matthew 23:11-12, Galatians 5:13, 1 Corinthians 10:24
Writer Philip Yancey notes that toward the end of his life, Albert Einstein removed the portraits of two scientists–Newton and Maxwell–from his wall. He replaced those with portraits of Gandhi and Sch...
Galatians 6:9-10, Ecclesiastes 11:1-2, Matthew 6:3-4, Acts 20:35, Proverbs 11:25, Luke 19:8, 1 Timothy 6:17-18
Investor T. Boone Pickens talked about how good it feels to give. He said, “I was put here to make money so I could give it away.” I heard a nearly giddy Warren Buffet, then the second or third riches...
Nothing is ever done until everyone is convinced that it ought to be done, and has been convinced for so long that it is now time to do something else.
Exodus 17:10–13, Leviticus 19:18, Luke 10:25–37, Matthew 25:34–40 , Philippians 2:3–4, Psalm 103:8–13
On a beautiful April afternoon in 2008, two college softball teams faced off in a decisive playoff game beneath the Cascade Mountains. The Western Oregon Wolves battled Central Washington University, ...
In Passing the Plate: Why American Christians Don't Give Away More Money, the authors point out that if Americans who professed to be "strong" or "very strong" Christians tit...
Exodus 3:7-8, James 2:15-17, Luke 10:25-37, Proverbs 3:27, Micah 6:8, Matthew 5:16
At the 5-mile mark in the Old Kent Riverbank Run a guy passing me said, “Hey buddy, you dropped your key.” There was no getting home without my key. Like a salmon swimming upstream I headed back into ...
A mind is more like a pile of millions of little rocks than a single big boulder. To change a mind, we need to carry thousands of little rocks from one pile to another, one at a time. This is because ...
Mark 6:1-13, Matthew 28:19-20, Mark 16:15, Matthew 10:, Mark 3:14, 2 Corinthians 5:20, Luke 10:
Go now, as people who bear witness to the power of God in the world. Go, bearing God’s peace to the places and people who you will encounter. Go, as representatives of Christ’s salvation, in the power...
I was teaching an English class in a high-rise apartment complex full of low-income families in Minneapolis—mostly immigrant and refugees from East Africa. The tenants’ association paid for me to come...
In the early 1900s, a “respectable” woman wore an average of twenty-five pounds of clothing when she appeared in public. The sight of an ankle could cause scandal. Over the next hundred years the pend...
On a trip to South Africa, I met a remarkable woman named Joanna. She is of mixed race, part black and part white, a category known there as “Coloured.” As a student she agitated for change in aparthe...
John 1:1-5, Psalm 86:1, Psalm 22:1-2, Psalm 28:7, Psalm 65:5
Prayer Service for Peace in Israel and Palestine This service is designed as an evening, outdoor prayer vigil using handheld candles. Feel free to modify the order of worship as needed, including...