The proposal begins with a model that moves us from simple benevolence to partnership with God’s transforming work. In fact, we have already been practicing this model for ministry as a church: acts of compassion and benevolence leading to meaningful relationships that have provided a context for testimony about God’s goodness so that God’s transforming [...]

In the fall of 1993, James Lane was driving his Volkswagen on the back roads of the Oregon coast. He was forty-one, born in the year-of-our-Lord 1952. Around the time of James’ birth, a seed pod dropped from one of Oregon’s towering western red cedars and took root in the loamy soil of the coastal [...]

Bedraggled men wear signs announcing it. Pastors with over-heated imaginations write novels visualizing it. Preachers pound pulpits proclaiming it. The end of the world. The Day of Judgment. The Second Coming. Even poets bravely broach the subject. Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire, [...]

The Beat Goes On In the breast of every man and woman beats the heart of a hero. That beating may be muted. It may be tentative and unfocused. It may be congested by sin and scars and accumulated failures. It may falter with a sense of unworthiness and self-doubt. But the beat is there [...]

We met running through the Atlanta airport, trying to catch a connecting flight to Jacksonville. We labored side-by-side for a few moments and then she dropped behind gasping. I yelled over my shoulder that I’d have them hold the plane for her. Sadly, the gate was already closed when I finally got there. We watched [...]

Recently, I went shopping for some clothes to wear on an upcoming trip to Thailand. I am speaking at the Asian Mission Forum in Chiang Mai and needed something appropriate and cool (the temperature “cool” rather than the fashion “cool”). The woman presiding over the Men’s department was in her mid-60’s, grey-headed and life-lined. She [...]

Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem “If” opens with the line: If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs … and closes with the encouragement: … you’ll be a Man my son. Whatever you may think of the poem’s merits (as either poetry or philosophy), the lines above are worth hearing and [...]

It is commendable if someone bears up under the pain of unjust suffering because they are conscious of God. But how is it to your credit if you receive a beating for doing wrong and endure it? But if you suffer for doing good and you endure it, this is commendable before God. (1Pe 2:19-20) [...]

Communication is hard. Finding common ground and common words is hard. We have to build bridges in the air just to cross from one mind to another. It’s exhausting. When you think about it, though, it’s not differences in language that create this problem so much as difference in people. Even those who share a [...]