Killing With Kindness
Category: Pastor
Have you ever heard the phrase “killing with kindness” or perhaps used it yourself? This phrase in our personal experiences usually means that when we are confronted with someone who is critical, unfriendly, or unloving, we respond in an unexpected fashion with extreme love. This is performed in hopes of changing the other person’s attitude and actions. Whereas conventional wisdom calls for killing our neighbors with kindness, a thirty-year-old guy in Santa Rosa, Florida by
New Year’s Resolution Recommendation
Category: Pastor
In his book A Journey to Bethlehem, pastor, writer, and musician, Jason Soroski, offers the following definitions of a resolution: “Resolution. Webster defines the word as being ‘marked by firm determination.’ The word dominates every New Year’s Eve. To the musician, a ‘resolution’ is a harmony line moving from a dissonant tone (one that does not fit the melody) to a consonant tone (one that fits). Harmonies can dance and amaze us with varied complexities
The Meaning of Christmas
Category: Pastor
Every year on or around the Thanksgiving holiday, families across the USA begin decorating their homes with Christmas decorations, both inside and out. My family is no different. The Thanksgiving turkey was not yet fully digested this year and Tina and my oldest son, Brett, were busily putting up the Christmas tree and other yuletide decorations. For many, this is a cherished family tradition. For others, it is a cutthroat competition where neighbors crazily battle
Practicing Gratitude
Category: Pastor
In a blog entitled “Thankful for the Fleas” at Christianity.com, pastor, author, and seminary professor James Emery White gives us good food for thought this Thanksgiving month with an illustration from the life of the heroic Christian, Corrie ten Boom: “The barracks where Corrie ten Boom and her sister, Betsy, were kept in the Nazi concentration camp, Ravensbruck, were terribly overcrowded and flea-infested. They had been able to miraculously smuggle a Bible into the camp,
Does God Play Trick or Treat?
Category: Pastor
October is of course most notable for the celebration of Halloween. And the phrase most associated with Halloween is certainly the words: “trick or treat!” Now we are all familiar with the Halloween practice of children wearing costumes and going from door to door in neighborhoods. As they proceed from house to house, children yell “trick or treat” when a door is opened to ask for treats, with the implied threat of playing tricks on