My skepticism was triggered immediately; it felt like an uncontrollable reflex. That was my reaction when reading this testimony from Jeremy and Adrienne Penner’s October newsletter: “My health was slowly deteriorating, and so I went to the hospital. The doctor found a large tumor in my abdomen and told me they would need to operate.… I didn't know a lot about Jesus yet, but I began to pray that he would heal my illness.… When I went back to the doctor for my scheduled operation, there was absolutely no sign of the tumor!”

When I served in the children’s ministry in my home church as a young adult, one of our faithful volunteers was Grandpa Ed. Grandpa Ed showed up nearly every week and was what we called a “listener”—he wasn’t in a classroom or teaching a Bible lesson, but as kids worked through their memory verses in their classroom, he was available in another area to work one-on-one with kids to memorize or recite their verse. And they loved him.

I state the obvious: As a male pastor, I should be a pastor to women. It should not be said of my ministry that the men got good teaching, mentoring, and compassionate attention, but not so much the women. Female pastors may have these challenges too, but here I am focusing on men.

The bathroom floor seemed an appropriate place for a meltdown. My sympathetic friend waited for me to gather my thoughts. Though separated by a province, we were connected by phone and heart.

Tim and Laurel Schroder’s first trip to Pukapuki, Papua New Guinea (PNG), included an eight-hour boat trip up the river during which they nearly collided with another dugout, wrecking their propeller and almost swamping their boat with all their belongings.

sleepless she slumps in tears

on the couch peers

through the blinds

a street lamp her only light

where is the light for her soul?

where is forgiveness?

It’s Saturday morning: What should we do? For a family like mine, with young children, there are many options on a weekend. But one Saturday, we decided to try something different after a train whistle reminded us of what God calls us to do.

Always first were the grade ones and twos who did the Christmas acrostic. Margaret was first and she boldly held out the C. “C is for the Christ child, born that morn so long ago,” she said crisply. The concert was off to a fine start. Harold was next, and during practice, he had had some difficulties with his line which was simply, “H is for King Herod who slew the Hebrew boys.” Harold looked confident.

“Sometimes when there’s something new, everyone looks at it to see if it can work, [but] all sorts of churches … have done well [or] have failed with single pastor hires or multi-team hires.… Things go wrong all the time.… If [co-pastoring] fails, it doesn’t mean it always is going to fail, and if it works, it doesn’t mean it’s always going to work.”

The Pax Romana was a phrase coined by perhaps the most successful authority figure in world history. Directly translated it means the “Roman peace,” and it was a phrase dreamt up and made common by Caesar Augustus, the first and by most considered the greatest Augustan emperor of the renowned Roman Empire.

We were in the dark, quite literally. Due to an accident and damage to a transformer on the Saturday evening before our planned deacon commissioning service, we experienced a widespread power outage in our area.

♪ Do you remember the good old days? When we could walk to the corner store, pick up milk, chocolate bars, maybe a new bike? You can’t get away with that anymore. They have surveillance cameras now. Well, theft is no laughing matter.