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."
October 15, 2017
Cities are fundamental to God's design and plan for the world. Although the Bible starts in a garden, it ends in a city. We saw the Word revealed in the big cities of the era through willing disciples who, you'll notice, were not sent to the Gobi desert to preach to the sand, they were sent to metropolitan areas like Antioch, Phillippi, Corinth, and Nineveh. Although there is deprivation and need everywhere, in cities where people live in close proximity we can actually weigh the problems because of the negative critical mass of issues and need. Here is where we can do the most good...
October 5, 2017
In 2007, Oprah Winfrey opened a $40 million school to educate 152 girls on a 22 acre site outside of Johannesburg, South Africa. Its 28 buildings offer the best educational environment, the best beds and even 400-count percale sheets, tested by Oprah herself. To me it is interesting that Oprah decided to build a school in Africa after years of effort to support schools in the U.S. Why the move? Simply put: It is harder here. I remember an interview where she told a reporter, that the students in schools here wanted to know if she'd be giving them Air Jordan tennis shoes or electronics of some kind. That wasn't the response she was looking for...
