Last Wednesday Jamie Mitchell, pastor of NewSong Fellowship Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was asked to give the opening prayer at the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Usually these prayers are so bland as to be utterly forgettable. Jamie’s prayer was definitely not bland. By way of full disclosure, I should add that Jamie is …
An old man and an old woman, childless for decades, are promised by God that someday they would have a baby. Abraham responds with total honesty. He laughs out loud at the Almighty. When Sarah hears the news,she laughs, too. How could such a thing happen? Twenty-five long years pass while they wait for God to keep his promise. Now he is 99 and she …
It’s hard to believe, but we’re almost halfway through 2009. What will the rest of this year bring? Will the economy turn around? What will happen in the Middle East? And what will happen to us personally? No one knows but God. It happened not long after I returned from Belize in 1992. While rummaging through an accumulated mountain of …
Many years ago I took a night course called “Advanced Apologetics” from Dr. John Warwick Montgomery at a place called Melodyland School of Theology. I’m not making up that name. The school met in a big church building located right across the street from Disneyland. At that time I was pastoring a small Covenant church in a suburb …
In the middle of the night I received an instant message that somehow found us in our stateroom on a cruise ship sailing somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. It was Peter Faulkner telling me that his father had died at the age of 95. “We are at peace,” the message said. While thinking about Dr. Faulkner, my mind wandered back to my fir…
Yesterday I put forth a modest collection of “self-evident truths.” Here are seven more:1. If it’s truly important, you will find time to do it. How many times have we made excuses for not doing something when in the end, we know we didn’t do it because it just wasn’t very important to us? Actions speak louder than wor…
I’ve been mentally compiling a list of self-evident truths that cannot be denied. You can ignore them but you can’t disprove them. Here is my list so far, with a few explanatory comments: 1. Life goes on. No matter what we do, life goes on. If we foul up, life goes on. If we hit the jackpot, life goes on. Whether we laugh or cry, shout …
Over lunch with a friend, he told me about something unusual that happened when he attended a conference where a noted Christian author was speaking. Suddenly and without warning, during the middle of her address, a man stood up and verbally attacked her. Although taken aback, she recovered and responded with kindness. My friend said…
Some time ago I heard the following statement on the radio and thought it was worth passing along: “The key to success in life is how well you adapt to Plan B.” There is a world of truth in that simple sentence. So many of us go through life frustrated because we’re still working on Plan A. That’s the one where everything wo…
By the time you read these words Marlene and I will be heading to Puerto Rico to board a ship for a seven-night Caribbean cruise. I’m not totally sure about all the places we’ll visit, but I know St. Thomas is on the list, along with Barbados and St. Maarten and a few other islands. This is not a ministry trip or a “working vacati…