Isn’t it wonderful to teach the stories in Scripture to children? Many of us who are parents, Sunday school teachers, VBS leaders, or elementary school teachers know that the accounts of David and Goliath and Israel Crossing the Red Sea is more exciting for eight-year-olds than teaching them justification by faith alone from Romans 3:21–28 (as vital as the latter is). My ten-year-old finds a...
When you were a teenager, did you ever consider that Jesus could actually be walking alongside you? Like right that very moment—even though you couldn’t see him. How would knowing that have changed your life? Maybe those questions about your younger years have you thinking about your life now as an adult. Do you think about Jesus walking beside you today? Because you can’t see or hear Jesus with...
Across my desk is a young couple who have come for counseling because they are having a real struggle with their four-year-old son. For reasons that are beyond their understanding, their boy has begun eating dirt. They have done everything they know to convince him that eating dirt is not at all good for him, but whenever they are not around, he goes right back to it. They are concerned that this...
Eleven years ago, I stood in the pulpit of a dying church. Despite an expansive building, the worship area was mostly empty as I preached the installation service for Rich Shadden. After serving three years as a pastoral intern in the church where I pastored, he was ready to leave the nest for the challenge of pastoral ministry. He and his wife had prayed often about doing revitalization work in...
I eagerly prepared to preach after a long delay from in-person worship gatherings with my church family. In God’s providence, the world had shut down from the COVID-19 pandemic. Months later as I sat there preparing, I felt the emotion with which Paul wrote 1 Thessalonians 2:17: “But since we were torn away from you, brothers, for a short time, in person not in heart, we endeavored the more...
