by Kim Priddy, Associate Pastor of Missions To hand someone a dollar or not? This is a debate that is faced when you come upon someone holding a cardboard sign at an intersection that reads: “Hungry- Anything Helps.” The bible…
Communities, borders, and “Persons of Peace”
“We pray and walk through our community, looking for persons of peace with whom we can connect.” “Persons of Peace.” That’s a term I’ve heard multiple times during my summer sabbatical study of how churches are engaging in Christian community…
Repenting of Christianity
Chinua Achebe’s classic novel Things Fall Apart centers around the life on Okonkwo, the powerful leader of his clan and their village, one of nine villages in the Umuofia region of Nigeria. Okonkwo is a fearsome warrior, well-respected among his…
The taller I become….
We’re remembering the Freedom Summer of 1964 this year, fifty years later. During those momentous times in US history, a broad group of organizations worked together to break the tyranny of the Jim Crow laws in Mississippi. Their primary goal…
The complexity of short-term missions
Lately I’ve had the privilege to be part of great discussions about how to improve our current short-term mission praxis. Many of us know that something is wrong with the way we do short-term work, and thankfully there are a…
Can I give you a ride?
I like giving people rides. As I live and work in the same neighborhood with a high concentration of poverty, I find the opportunity arises quite often. It’s a simple act of kindness that gives me joy while meeting an…
Know thy neighbor
The Wave Recently as I was driving into the neighborhood of the church I serve, I realized I was behind one of my church members at the stop sign. I waved furiously, hoping that he would look in the rearview…
Prayer and resistance
Just after seeing Jesus transfigured, the disciples run into a little trouble. A man with a boy possessed by a demon approaches them to cast out the demon. The disciples try, gathering a big crowd along the way, but they…
Things a Christian can learn during Ramadan
Ramadan begins on June 28th. Ramadan is the month when people who follow Islam fast from the time the sun comes up until it goes down. They do this for 30 days. Sometimes my Muslim friends laugh at me because…
You mean they weren’t so bad after all?
A recent cover story on Christianity Today tells of the groundbreaking research of Dr. Robert Woodberry. Dr. Woodberry has done a thorough examination of the economic and political realities of a number of formerly colonially-controlled modern nations and sought an…
Five challenges of diversity
How strange it has seemed to us to live in Houston. The Houston we left 28 years ago and the Houston we call home today are two entirely different places, though they share the same geographic location. It was about…
Risk list
I live in a hospitality house. Living in a hospitality house has become a more frequent choice for Christians lately, sort of in the way that kale has experienced a resurgence over the past few years: having people think you…