November 1, 2025
Articles for tag: December
November 1, 2023
November 1, 2022
December 9, 2020
November 22, 2020
Worship God . . . No Matter What
Three hundred children were dressed and ready for school when the orphanage’s housemother came to George Mueller and told him there was no food to feed them. Without panicking, Mueller asked her to take the children to the dining room and prepare them for a meal. He blessed the food that they did not have, and he waited. He was confident God would provide. Within minutes, there was a knock at the door. It was a baker who said he could not sleep and somehow knew the orphanage needed bread that day. The baker brought in three batches of bread,
November 22, 2020
Personal Obedience in the Life of an Elder
Among the many notable things about the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt, are the massive foundational stones that were carefully crafted and precisely positioned. The foundation for the Great Pyramid had to be formidable to support the weight that was to come. Foundations are key to the success or failure of a structure. As elders and church staff, it is critical we understand that the foundation for our leadership is our personal, growing relationship with Jesus. Our personal spiritual development forms the foundation for our service. This foundation is made up of several key “stones.” Paul mentions many of them
November 22, 2020
How to Lead a Peacekeeping Church
Practice These Three Crucial Habits to Live at Peace with Everyone and to Be an Example for Our Communities and Nation to Follow Never before has peacekeeping in the church been so difficult! This past summer in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis, I received two emails from people who were upset at how we were handling the situation. The first said she was leaving the church because we weren’t properly social distancing (although we thought we were) and we weren’t making people wear masks. The second said she was leaving the church because we were listening to the liberal
November 22, 2020
Rebuilding Hope from the Ashes
Lewis Street Church of Christ faced one obstacle after another; then, after the building was firebombed, people from across the country came together to help restore the building . . . and much more. Just weeks after he was named minister of the Lewis Street Church of Christ, Jameel Robinson delivered a message that shocked the congregation: Get out of the building. It wasn’t a “go into the community and serve” sermon, said Robinson, who had just moved from Mississippi to preach for the Little Rock, Arkansas, church. It wasn’t a sermon at all. The congregation literally could not be
November 22, 2020
Drinking Tea, Sharing Meals, and Making Disciples
Musa* lives in a Muslim country in the Middle East. Since he grew up hearing stories about the great prophet Jesus, he thought he knew all about him. That changed when he became roommates with Yosef*. Yosef shared his faith in Christ as the Messiah with Musa, and they began studying the Bible together. Before long, Musa accepted Jesus and wanted to be baptized. Christians in his country usually baptize new believers in a river, but because of the pandemic occurring at the time, public beaches were all closed. Musa’s baptism would have to wait. As time passed, Musa became
November 22, 2020
The New Year, No Fear Challenge
How You Can Begin 2021 with Courage and Understanding This year-end article was written in mid-September. Due to the magazine’s production schedule, I simply don’t have the luxury of knowing if we’ve made strides toward loving each other well, who won the election, the state of the economy, or whether there is a coronavirus vaccine. As I type these words, my mother is suffering from COVID-19. She’s older, in poor health, and already fighting cancer, so I have no clue whether she will survive or go to be with the Lord. Remember the old saying, “hindsight is 20-20”? If
November 22, 2020
The Missing Piece
The concept of peace was like a refrain in my early years. Every Sunday morning in the Catholic church where I grew up, we exchanged a “sign of peace.” I was an admirer of Mother Teresa, who often wrote and spoke about peace. “Works of love are works of peace,” she said. We regularly sang a hymn in our church that begin with the words, “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.” It’s a beautiful song with admirable sentiments. I truly wanted to “take each moment and live each moment” as a peacemaker. Yet, theologically
November 22, 2020
How Social Media Robs Us of Peace and Joy . . . and How We Can Get It Back
I’m not a doomsayer. I do not believe social media is inherently evil. Instead, I believe it’s morally neutral. Like most technology, its capacity for good or evil lies in the hands of those who wield it. However, to pretend that you and I are the hands that truly wield it is naïve at best and irresponsible at worst. You may have good intentions when you sign in, but once you tap on that app you are entering a space that lauds your ability to shape the world by what you share, but in actuality, social media tends to shape
November 22, 2020
The Anxiety Antidote (A Study of Luke 2)
Two Announcements of Peace and How We Live In Between And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people” (Luke 2:8-10). What a sweet story. We can almost hear Linus recounting the entire passage in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” We see images of sweet children in a
November 22, 2020
Inconvenient Christmas
I awoke to a picture-perfect Christmas. The world glistened under a blanket of sparkling white snow. The bad news. I had duty with the volunteer ambulance service that day. When my EMT neighbor discovered I was an RN, he talked me into joining his team. I never envisioned how my commitment might inconvenience my family. Our children, still in their fuzzy new pajamas, clamored to open Christmas presents. I hugged them. “I’m so sorry. I need you to help your dad and me shovel snow from our driveway. I’m on ambulance-call today and can’t get the car out.” We bundled
November 22, 2020
10 Foundation Stones of the Church—No. 8: Spiritual Gifts
A few years ago I had the chance to take my ministry team to the University of Notre Dame. We toured the stadium, but the highlight was going into the locker room, slapping the “PLAY LIKE A CHAMPION TODAY” sign, and running out of the tunnel and onto the field. It was all make-believe, but it pointed up man’s desire to be part of the game. Watching from the bleachers can be fun, but it’s nothing like actually playing in the game. Think about it—from the time we were young, we didn’t merely want to attend games or concerts, we
November 22, 2020
‘Let Faith Do Its Work’ (A Study of James 1:1-12)
The Battle between What We Want and What Our Faith Wants At the start of his Epistle, James, the brother of Jesus, shared his curious idea about faith. A war is going on within us between what we want and what our faith wants. And so, he said, we have to let faith do its work. As individuals, we want things that get in the way of what our faith wants. We want convenience, familiarity, and the good life—but these things are at war with faith . . . and faith has its own goal. Religious leaders (like me) have
November 22, 2020
A Biblical Case for Noncompliance
How We Chose to Deal with the Restrictions and Mandates Placed on Us by State and Local Governments “I had some serious thoughts of suicide in December. I was making headway with the help of my mental health classes and church, then both were taken away from me. Now, with nowhere else to physically go, I’m struggling.” This was a direct message from a church member who reached out to me for help during the coronavirus pandemic. This precious believer was struggling, lost, hurting, and losing hope. It crushed me because I felt helpless to do anything about it. I’m
November 22, 2020
Our Powerful, Eternal Prince of Peace (A Study of Isaiah 9)
Three Timely Truths We Desperately Need Today I love Hallmark Christmas movies. I can imagine that, this year, Hallmark might air A Very COVID Christmas, where a newly single woman—who used to live in the big city and work for a huge company—moves back to her small hometown to sell the house she grew up in after the recent death of her mother . . . and then the pandemic hits! While quarantined in her childhood home, she has meals delivered from her favorite local diner by a food delivery service. The delivery guy—a recently widowed and now single father
