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Light on Main Street
My uncle Rudy is one of my heroes. In his lifetime he’s taken stands for truth and faith that have led to some family and friends distancing themselves from him because he professed a more open view of the body of Christ outside the particular little church community in which he was raised. No reason…
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Blended families
Yes, what Fajita said is accurate, and I wanted to share a quote to add on to that. Many of our families are blended. Few if any families in the world today are not impacted by divorce, re-marriage, polygamy, adoption, abandonment. Jesus’ was what we would call a stepchild to Joseph. He was not Joseph’s…
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Nativity Stories
I read this book recently and couldn’t wait to tell you about it, so I wrote a review and posted it at Wineskins. Part of my urgency was to put it up before Christmas, because our interest in Mary is usually around Christmas, which is part of what Scot McKnight, who I consider one of…
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Joseph, stepfather of the Lord
I asked at a Christmas party last night for those gathered to tell one part of the Christmas story that stood out in their hearings so far this Advent. One person said she was touched by the fact that Jesus was part of a step family. Here is a little-read line from the beginning of…
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What if you were Mary?
I asked high school students last week to visualize Mary, depicted so well in The Nativity Story, conflicted, wondering how anyone would believe her story about the Holy Spirit conceiving in her a child. When you wonder how this teenaged Jewish girl might have felt to be the mother of the Messiah, ask teenagers how…
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Baptism on ice
I’m going to tell you a story about how my wife and I tried to plan our daughter’s baptism and how snow and family travel plans and a broken baptistery met with resolve of a young girl to be baptized in the place where her church worships and nowhere else. The details might bore you,…