Be Pro-Choice
How does influence grow? John Maxwell writes, “Talent is a gift, but character is a choice.” We all make bad decisions. But if we refuse to change, those decisions produce bad character. And that bad character influences others around us. Positive...
University Free for All
In recent political debates in the United States, several candidates have called for tuition-free university. Let’s consider history before rushing to adopt that idea. Catherine the Great in late 18th century Russia observed with deep interest the diversity of devout...
Change Your Mind
The gospel of the kingdom begins with one word: REPENT. It doesn’t say, “Accept Jesus in your heart”. It’s not just about going to heaven. It’s about the conscience, a heart that is tender and obedient. That nasty word is difficult to use. Flaky people use the word...
New Wine
I believe the reformation is still incomplete. The reformers were not simply seeking a replacement of one structure for another. Reformation always moves the church as we know it away from the current structure it has enjoyed to less formal, less structured, and more...Read more“It is by living – no rather, by dying and being damned – that a theologian is made, not by understanding, reading, or speculating.”
Being You
It happens all the time. When you move from one place to the next, one school to another, one job to the next. It’s the way it is. You might have been on the inside, but then you’re on the outside. As the Bruce Hornsby song goes, Don’t believe it. It’s not fate....Go Barefoot
Luke 10:3-4 Go! …Do not take… sandals. Why wear shoes? I love to go barefoot in the summertime. I love sand between my toes. But going shoeless is not just for the pleasures of the beach. We wear shoes to protect our feet. But biblical characters would remove their...
Reformed Theology, Great Commission, and Halloween
In honor of the 500th anniversary of the birth of the Protestant Reformation when Martin Luther nailed 95 theses (list of questions and propositions for debate) to the chapel door/bulletin board at the University of Wittenberg where he was a professor, I offer a...
I didn’t like animals, but that changed
Do you ever stop and consider where your thoughts come from? Don’t you wish you could just take those stray thoughts by the throat and wrestle them to the ground and say, “Where did you come from?” It took a passage from C.S. Lewis’ book, The Great...Read more“Human need is really a great spiritual vacuum which God seeks to fill. God is going to reveal to us things He never revealed before if we put our hands in His.”
When your degree doesn’t matter
Wil Schroter, CEO at Startups.com writes, “Your degree is just the most expensive piece of artwork from your past.” Ouch! Why? He explains it all in this one sentence: “In our time we’ve seen very little correlation or causality between the level of...
13 Reasons
I recently watched 13 Reasons on Netflix. I recoiled at first. I am one of the few who didn’t read the book, so it surprised me. I can’t imagine why someone would document all the reasons for committing suicide. And then name them, the reasons are...
Tomorrowland
On a flight from Singapore to Tokyo, my conversation with the man sitting next to me took a sad turn. He’s a merchant marine on his way back to sell his condo in Boston and build his new house on 12 acres in Maine. He said, “When the nukes go off in about...Fork in the Road
Someone said, “When you come to the fork in the road, take it.” A while back Mary and I were in Switzerland. We drove from the sleepy Swiss village of Burtigny to the bustling city of Lausanne to do some errands. We downloaded the turn by turn instructions...Overcoming Fear
Have you ever taken a personality test? Have you assessed your spiritual or motivational gifts? Darrow Miller, the author of Life Work, writes: “We spend 50 to 75% of our waking hours and 60 to 90% of the years of our lives working. Yet many of us never invest...