Abraham Lincoln is a legend.  He is known for being a wise, steadfast, and visionary leader who moved the United States through the Civil War and out of slavery.  But that is certainly not how he was known during his lifetime.  He was perceived by many as waffling, inexperienced, and a failure. Lincoln faced repeated [...]

What if God actually helped us?  What if, in our moment of pain, we could pray and our pain would go away?  What if, when we suffered, we could ask God for help and our suffering would actually cease?  That’d be nice.  It would be nice if knowing Christ meant saying goodbye to pain.   [...]

Life’s hard isn’t it?  At some point we’ve all had to come to terms with the fact that we aren’t going to get what we want.  The thing that we won’t get can be as mundane as a new camera or as meaningful as a new job, a spouse, or a child.  Sometimes, even with [...]

There’s often a lot of talk by Christians lamenting the non-religious nature of our government, but what I find ironic is that the early Christians faced criticism from the government lamenting that they weren’t religious!  The Roman Government repeatedly called Christians atheists and even killed them for it.  In fact, the first martyrdom recorded in [...]

Last night on my way back from Denver I had the privilege of sitting next to a cop.  This individual was working on a case aimed at arresting some people engaged in sex-trafficking.  She shared some stories, and she talked about the anger she feels when she hears the stories of abuse that these girls [...]

At breakfast one morning, a wife looks at her husband as he reads the financial page of the newspaper, just as he has done every morning for the past twenty years.  She longs to yank away the paper and tell him she is just as in love with him today as she was the day [...]

Thoughts from Mary (My first attempt at blogging) As a counselor, I am struck again and again by the universal nature and influence of death and loss.  Everyone has or will lose someone they love.  It is only a matter of time.  While death is universally experienced by all, grief is processed so differently and [...]

In Dave Gibbons new book, he argues that successful leaders will be third culture leaders–leaders who are liquid and adaptable to the changing cultural landscape that is globalization. Throughout the book he sets out to define what this looks like for the church and her leaders. One of the attributes of this sort of leader [...]

I’m white and my wife is ethnically Korean.  We live in Edina, MN, the most affluent suburb in the state.  It is 94.28% white.  Today my wife experienced the sad reality of being Korean in a predominantly white city. A couple months ago she received a speeding ticket.  She was coasting down a hill near [...]

It has come to my attention that God humiliates himself.  He is a God who chooses to bind himself to the most embarrassing types of people.  He is a God who likes to hang out with the un-cool kid in school.  He is a God who chooses the Israelites because they are a weak people.  [...]