I have been thinking a lot recently about the Bible in a “can’t see the forest for the trees” sort of way. I have been reading and conversing and praying, seeking to better appreciate and frame the bigger picture of the biblical story. In a 20,000-foot conversation about the Bible, a friend told me about […]
“We must no longer be children…. but we must grow up in every way … into Christ” -Apostle Paul One is hard-pressed to find a time in history when the Church has gone more places, provided more resources, and proclaimed the gospel more widely than over the past several decades. Yet amidst all these efforts, […]
My imagination is being stretched. And I would like to stretch yours. A neighbor has been coming by our property twice a year on behalf of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology researching the density of eastern bluebirds in the Upper Midwest. For many years she has not seen a single bluebird when she visits. Early […]
In his late forties, Sam began to sense that something was wrong. After a couple of decades seeking to honor God in the responsibilities of his life, a question confronted him one evening: Amidst all this stuff I am doing for God and others, does anyone really know me? This question named his unrest. Sam […]
Many years ago I sat down with a group of Biola University professors and fellow graduate students over lunch to hear Dr. Jim Houston from Regent College (Vancouver, BC) give a brief lecture. In his early seventies at the time, this small, Scottish man, with half a century of experience in the academic settings of […]
When I heard that best-selling author and Christian counselor Larry Crabb had passed away last week, I got to some remembering. I recall seeing in the summer of 1989, a video series based on Crabb’s book Inside Out, in which he argued, if we are going to take seriously Jesus Christ, then we need to move […]
I pin my hopes to quiet processes and small circles, in which vital and transforming events take place. Rufus Jones (1863-1948) VP3’s The Journey is a person-centered process. It sets the table for the development of people, not the mastery of the material. This does not mean that the wisdom of the content is unimportant. Rather, it […]
As we come alongside others, we are invited by God to become living reminders of this startling reality––their story is unique and it matters deeply to God and us. I have been reminded recently that meaningful conversation with another must be rooted in a sense of wonder or reverence for the person. Few things are worse […]