March 7, 2018
Throw out anything that generates self distain or dislike. Anything that promotes fear or hate. (Which feed on each other.) Get rid of jealousy. According to an 18th century scientist and theologian, Emanuel Swedenborg, we create our own problems because we do not choose our thoughts. Mainly, he says, those negative thoughts about yourself are seeds of unhappiness. And who's to say what's perfect? We are all very different people, but we all play the same game...
February 22, 2018
God chooses the unlikely, for sure. Graham was just a tall scrawny farm kid of 16 when a traveling preacher came through his little town in 1934. He loved baseball and went to church…but Billy's heart was stolen when he was saved. As we look at his life from the vantage point of 2018, it might be hard to remember how huge this man was. How in 1957, in a post-war world that was entering a cold-war world, Graham filled Madison Square Garden for 16 weeks...
February 4, 2018
Jim and I heard someone say "We have become so open-minded, our brains have fallen out". We had a good laugh. But what are we so open minded about? There is still debate about equality of the races, equality between men and women in the workplace, even on the subject of who may join our churches, and who is worthy to receive our charitable acts. While Paul set out some pretty defined do's and don't's about the way Christians should act, Jesus covered all Paul's strict decrees with a softness that made room for the amazing array of human conditions in God's creation...
January 22, 2018
I have been communicating with an inmate at the Putnamville Correctional facility. He wrote me after seeing the Unite Indy insert on "Race Relationships" in the Indianapolis Business Journal, asking if we would connect him with a pastor for spiritual guidance. So, I wrote him back, and he wrote again and it has become a meaningful conversation. I don't know what he did to receive a 20-year sentence, but I know...
January 7, 2018
You can pretty much find out how to do anything by Googling it on your computer, but you won't even have to do that today, because I have supplied everything you need to make 2018 a great year in three easy steps. Here we go....
December 20, 2017
On Christmas of 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. preached the following words: "The next thing we must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and good will toward men is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. Every man is somebody because he is a child of God…Man is more than …whirling electrons or a wisp of smoke …. Man is a child of God, made in His image, and therefore must be respected as such."
December 7, 2017
"If you see a fish go belly up in a lake, you try to find out what was wrong with the fish. You see a thousand fish go belly up in a lake and you better take a look at the lake."
November 21, 2017
Thankfulness did not start--as many Americans think--with the Pilgrims. Thank You are two very powerful words. According to wordsmiths, the English word "thank" derives from the word "think". So the saying used to mean "I will remember what you did." But maybe the first thank you is one that shows up in Luke 17...
November 9, 2017
His name is really Jason Petty, but he's known as "Propaganda." A Los Angeles-based Christian hip-hop artist and poet, he grew up the only black child in a Mexican neighborhood and later a suburban all-white neighborhood. He was always the outsider and now seems especially equipped to reach across racial and cultural divides to bring about understanding...
October 25, 2017
When Robert Lupton came to town to talk about his book, Toxic Charity at the Faith & Action event earlier this year, we all got a lesson on how not to be benevolent. Yes, you heard that right. You see them at the airport in matching t-shirs. Generous people flying off with "hearts full of pity and suitcases bulging with gifts" off to help the disadvantaged in some corner of the world. Yet there are critics. Said one Nicaraguan leader, these missions are effectively "turning my people into beggars."
