In a way I’m reluctant to talk about mission trips—those short-term ministry outings beloved by evangelical churches in which they send lay people to regions of the world in need of specific ministry needs—in this moment in history. It feels like the world is reaching a boiling point. Uncontrolled immigration, economic collapse, international terrorism, the decline of western influence and political upheaval fill the news all day, every day. And the governments we expect to solve the problems seem powerless to do anything. In this kind of environment what do our churches here in America expect to accomplish by sending a few people to do things like leading a […]
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Of all the twists of the 2016 Presidential Election, none has surprised me as much as the outpouring of support for Donald Trump by the evangelical community. Depending on which poll you look at, Trump has the support of about 37 percent of those who call themselves evangelical. Ted Cruz—by far the most outspoken conservative Christian of the candidates—comes in second at 20 percent. Ben Carson before his withdrawal from the race earlier this week stood at 11 percent. Marco Rubio and John Kasich had much lower levels of support even though both make their faith a central feature of their campaigns. You’d expect those numbers to be reversed […]
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The news of Antonin Scalia’s death hit evangelicals like a punch in the gut. I felt it, and so did almost everyone I know. With Scalia sitting as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, I felt Christians were safer and traditional morality more sustainable. With him gone I have less confidence in either outcome. Scalia had the requisite education and experience you’d expect from a Supreme Court Justice. The product of a Catholic education in high school and later at Georgetown University, he received his law degree from Harvard then embarked on a career that included stints teaching law at the Universities of Virginia and Chicago interspersed with […]
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For the past two years Pam and I have attended a Super Bowl party with one of the Sunday School classes at our church, a thirty-something class with fifteen or twenty couples. It’s a blast to hang out with them on a night when most of America is doing the same thing. But this get-together has a twist. The main attraction isn’t the football game; instead, the purpose is for the men to have a Spam cook-off. That’s right. The men in the class spend the weekend concocting dishes with Spam as the featured ingredient. Men will compete over anything, my wife reminds me on a regular basis. On the golf course, it’s […]
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I ran into a young husband and dad this week who used to come to our church, left for a while and now has returned. In the modern American church his experience isn’t unusual. Many people today join a church for shorter periods than previous generations and will move their membership several times through the course of a lifetime. As the young man shared his family’s journey with me, though, I realized there was a new wrinkle, one that had a wider meaning than his own experience, so I asked him if I could share some of it. I appreciate his willingness to let me do so. When he […]
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Presidential elections for evangelical Christians resemble nothing so much as Charlie Brown in the familiar “Peanuts” comic strip. In a running gag that creator Charles Schulz clearly enjoyed, every fall Lucy invited her friend to kick a football while she held it. Charlie Brown would take a running start in anticipation of booting the ball out of sight. But just before impact she would snatch it away and his foot would swing through empty air, followed by his body. The episodes all concluded the same way, with Charlie Brown lying on the ground wondering why he let her fool him once again as Lucy sauntered away with some caustic […]
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Our church’s custom on the last Sunday of the year is to have a single worship service where all our people take the Lord’s Supper together. It’s always a simple, worshipful service with families sitting together and enjoying the afterglow of Christmas while not yet back into the rush of the regular work and school schedules the New Year brings. This year was more difficult, though, because 2015 was filled with such bad news. And the New Year doesn’t look much better. The Presidential campaign grows more acrimonious and divisive by the day. War in the Middle East seems more likely than ever. The world’s economy is drifting toward […]
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Our son-in-law sent us a text this morning at 3:00AM to let us know our daughter Katie had gone into labor and our grand-daughter should be born in the next few hours. Their doula would keep us informed as the birth proceeded, the text assured us. Sleep was the last thing on our minds with the news, so we prayed for our kids then Pam picked up a book to occupy herself while waiting for further developments. I went to my desk and started the day’s work. Since they’re 3,000 miles away we had to settle for texts and phone calls until we can travel to their home in a few days. […]
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It’s almost Christmas, and at my house we’ve unpacked the boxes in the attic full of special decorations we only use this time of year. My wife and I have loads of stuff. The Christmas tree decorations are my particular favorites—everything from the first bauble we bought as a newly married couple over thirty years ago to the set of loopy ceramic penguins that presides over our home from the most visible position on the tree. Then there are the manger scenes (maybe a half dozen), lights, seasonal candles, table runners, china and so many knick-knacks I lose count. At Christmas we pull out all the stops and make our home as festive as […]
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