It’s Word of the Year time again. I’m not sure who started the Word of the Year trend, but I do remember the way it seemed to spark and then catch fire, lighting people up with inspiration and focus at the turn of the year, when we seem to need those things most. The transition…
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! (Matthew 7:11 NIV) On a normal Thursday evening a couple of weeks ago, my daughter and I arrived at her piano teacher’s…
“How’s everyone’s quiet time?” my new small group leader asked the group, looking around. I was bewildered. It was my first time visiting a “small group.” Until recently, I hadn’t known there were such things. I wasn’t sure, either, what belonging to a “small group” through my newfound church would look like. And now, fifteen…
I have a noisy life. Oh, you too? I thought that might be the case. Of course, by “noisy,” we don’t always mean audibly noisy. We mean noisy inside our own minds, don’t we? Yes, I have noisy children who chatter endlessly, who get loud in play and louder in distress or indignation, children who…
A few days before Christmas, my phone buzzed with a text message. “Ho, ho, ho,” it read. “Santa made a special delivery. Check your front porch. Ho, ho, ho. Merry Christmas!” I opened the front door and looked down at a sizable red-and-white gift bag with tissue paper billowing from its top. It contained a…
“I believe in . . . the holy catholic Church,” states the centuries-old Apostles’ Creed, or, if you’re a Lutheran, “I believe in . . . the holy Christian church.” In the creed, “catholic” means universal, as in the whole, global church that confesses its belief in Christian doctrine. The origins of the creed can be…