Giving The Gift of Your Presence

It's a heavy duty, the gift of presence: the gift of simply being there in body for someone. But it is profoundly valuable. [Click title to read more.]

It’s Not Our Job To Monitor The Ministry of Others

It's easy to criticize what other believers are doing based on what we think they should be doing. The disciples felt they knew best who ought and ought not to be about Jesus' work and how and in what way - and sometimes, so do we. [Click title to read more.]

What It Really Means To Overlook Offense

We Christians like to think we're good at forgiving. We aren't, for a lot of reasons. [Click title to read more.]

The Difference Between Real and Abstract Belief

I suspect that for believers it's easier and more comforting to face Christ's return or our return to Him in a sort of happy abstract rather than as a realistic possibility: those events are coming, they're out there, and they matter, but we don't always regard them with a profound sense of urgency. [Click title to read more.]

Do Not Let Easter Be A Culmination

It strikes me sometimes that we Christians are great at events. We know how to do Easter. We know how to do Christmas. We can make killer dinners and plays and cookouts. But an event is not a ministry. [Click title to read more.]

What Sacrificial Giving Looks Like

The most extravagant giving often comes from places of lack, and the gift receives value not from what it is but from the spirit in which it was given. [Click title to read more.]

The Simplicity of Stars

The Christian life is really pretty simple. Simple like true darkness and stars. But as believers, I think sometimes we'd prefer it not to be. [Click title to read more.]

Christmas Is A Beginning

Christians--instinctively, I think--tend to divide up our understanding of Jesus-as-baby versus Jesus-as-savior. The cosmic moment, the violent sacrifice, the grand and undying love: we save our contemplation of those things for Easter. But they started in the manger. [Click title to read more.]

What Does Christian Disagreement Look Like?

I'm the sort of person who apologizes even without having done anything wrong, just to smooth over an argument; I hesitate before taking a stance that might cause conflict. And yet the more I study, the more I realize that Christian disagreement both with believers and nonbelievers can be a beautiful, productive thing: we just have to learn the skill and then hone it over time. [Click title to read more.]

Focusing on Ourselves

What Jesus demonstrates here to the disciples is that it isn't our job to police the world in His name. If others are glorifying Christ - if others are doing good works in His name - Jesus' response is "Don't stop them." Don't hold people back. Don't intervene. Even if you think you can do it better. Even if you don't get it. Even if it's irritating. [Click title to read more.]