Happy New Year – Spoiler Alert: Tomorrow Won’t Be Different Than Today

Our calendars make a hard and fast break between today and tomorrow. Today it's one year, tomorrow it’ll be the new year. But that transition from one year to the next is arbitrary. We could just as easily have put the New Year celebration on July 1st as January 1st. And because there isn’t really …

Four Reasons to Keep Children Out of Adult Worship Services

There are plenty of reasons given to send children away when adults begin to worship. Below, are the four most common reasons I've heard to send kids out of the church's regular worship. None of them are good, though some can be tempting. They all come with heavy consequences for the congregation, the parents, and …

Fear and Love Both Have Long Arms: Choose Love

Can you guess where this photo was taken? It looks like a picture out of a Nazi concentration camp. It's not. This photo was taken right here in the United States in 1942. It captures the forcible internment of Japanese Americans that occurred after the attacks on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Very rarely …

Thou Shalt Covet

Have you ever heard of the "Wicked Bible?" It's been made famous for the omission of one small word: "not." Exodus 20:14, which is the recitation of the Ten Commandments, reads, "Thou shalt commit adultery." Oh, the difference the absence of one little word can make. The Bible that contained this error was published in …