I heard recently that the intersection of the 405 freeway with the Santa Monica freeway west of Los Angeles is the busiest in the entire U.S. That didn’t surprise me at all. Even forty-five years ago, when I was commuting as a student to UCLA just north of there, it […]
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“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” I don’t know about everyone else, but I was really bad at loving my neighbor as myself. I give myself passing grades on husbandhood and fatherhood. But when it came to the neighborhood? Frankly, I could have cared less. In other words, I […]
As a pastor, I shepherded two churches through two natural disasters: a hurricane and a once-in-500-year flood. Because I wasn’t prepared, I didn’t do well at all when hurricane Alicia hit Hitchcock, Texas in 1983. My ignorance and unpreparedness paralyzed me and kept me from providing any meaningful response. Ten […]
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Here’s a mistaken assumption Christians sometimes make: our children are the future of the church. That is not true. If it were, Jesus would have spent all of his time training his disciples to be great husbands and great fathers. But he didn’t. Instead, he trained them to be servants […]
The church is a good works factory. At least that’s how God envisions it. He sees a conveyor belt coming out the front door of your church with one amazing good work after another piling up outside. Inside, believers learn how to create those good works according to God’s specifications […]
One of my favorite TV shows this season is Designated Survivor. Kiefer Sutherland plays Tom Kirkman, a low level cabinet appointee who is the designated survivor during the President’s State of the Union address to congress. When an explosion kills the President, Vice President and all other cabinet members, Kirkman […]
I talk a lot about the three unique qualities of Christ’s love – personal identification, commitment, and sacrifice. In Christ’s Incarnation, God has identified with us and committed to us. And in redemption, God has sacrificed for us. Then we’re commanded to love each other the same way. That means […]
When I think about Christians and politics these days, the term “pyrrhic victory” comes to mind. Poor king Pyrrhus, who ruled in Greece in the third century BC, fought the Romans in the battle of Asculum in 279 BC. He won, but at such a cost it was tantamount to […]
“Bless you!” Someone sneezes in a public place and suddenly someone else, often a total stranger, blurts out that wish. Some have attributed the tradition to Pope Gregory I, who reportedly ordered everyone to say “God bless you” after someone sneezed in order to stem the spread of the plague. […]