• Trimming Christmas

    Our family participated in a story done by The Tennessean newspaper about simplifying Christmas yet trying to make it more meaningful each year. December 25, 2004 issue of The Tennessean: Trimming Christmas


  • Another Classic Christmas issue from Wineskins

    Wineskins Christmas (Vol 2, No 8): Madonna and Child, Jacobello Del Fiore, 1394-1439 I put up all the articles from this 1994 classic Christmas issue of Wineskins. For my readers on this blog, I’m offering you an extended trial of the magazine if you’re not already a subscriber. We offer a 10-day free trial, but…


  • IJM: Setting Captives Free

    This from International Justice Mission (IJM) Tune in to NPR’s Weekend Edition with Scott Simon to hear IJM founder and president, Gary Haugen, and David Makara Ngure, a young man helped by IJM. Ngure shares his story of police abuse and the relief and justice IJM brought to him when he was wrongfully accused and…


  • The Platinum Rule

    This is one of the most important disciplines of humanity: to creatively struggle to see through the eyes of our creator, to see what he sees, view the world as he does, love others as God loves. Ironically, we come closer to this goal by seeing through the eyes of others, and in so doing…


  • Words that make me ilk

    Here are a few words I’d like to drop out of today’s lexicon of speech. Take a look then tell me some of yours. Ilk – As in “You know, people of that ilk.” This word and people of that ilk who say it need to spend some time in McDonalds or some greasy spoon…


  • Lights of Christmas in China

    “Remember those in prison as if you were there with them; and those who are being maltreated, for you like them are still in the world” (Hebrews 13:3, NEB). Someone in China handled each of the little white lights on your Christmas tree. Many of those assembling the lights, crimping by hand without tools, are…


  • Happy Chranzanukah

    Our five-year-old, Jacob, ran through the house the other day shouting, “Happy Kwanza! Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Jill commented, “Well, our public schools met their goal . . . did you hear Jacob?” The goal of our children’s school related to this holiday season was to make the students aware of and help them respect…


  • Ethics: What is morality?

    Seems to me one of the questions near the surface during the election and now salient in our culture is, “What is morality?” There is a great rift between those who define morality as a set of rules for clean living and those who define morality more as social responsibility. For example, on one side…


  • The Punch

    Sports Illustrated’s issue, Sportsrage The Pacers-Piston Brawl will go down as a watershed moment in NBA and American sports history, when the line between fan and player was not only blurred but obliterated in an ugly display by both fans and players. You can hear about and read the story yourself, but what I want…


  • Marilyn, Moldova and orphans on her heart

    I want to tell you about a friend who has begun regular visits to the Republic of Moldova, an Eastern European country that is the second smallest and the poorest of the former Soviet Union states. Her name is Marilyn Swing, and she is a sister in Christ with me at the Woodmont Hills Church…