I’m so thankful to be a youth pastor. My wife and I jumped into full time ministry 21 years ago as newlyweds. We had our first of four sons three days before our first anniversary. The youth group called him “Cletus the Fetus.” Heather wasn’t as impressed as I was with their ...
There are times, like on this anniversary day, that I look back with thanksgiving that I am still around. Still around to celebrate my 24th wedding anniversary Monday, still around to go see my son in Arizona in a couple of weeks, still around to officiate at my daughter’s wedding in ...
even any anniversary–it has the potential to of course prompt reflection, and reflection that is based on gratitude. And truly that is where most of my reflection has been directed. It’s directed toward that for which I am grateful in my life. ...
But also extending the invitation to those who had done the excluding Jesus gave every single person the choice: “Learn from me. Live like me. Love with me. Or don’t.” He didn’t mandate it. He didn’t force it. Because, in the end, forced love isn’t really love, is it?
We prayed for the 15th anniversary that commemorates that genocide in Rwanda that killed more than 800,000 innocent lives. We grieved over another mass shooting at a Korean Christian retreat center, a center that helped the orphans and the homeless. It is no less than 8 such mass shootings ...