When someone shares a prayer request, what do you hear? We’ve been programmed to tell others when we have a need for God’s help. Many of us grew up going to Wednesday prayer service, where a significant block of time…
Life moves in circles, especially in troubled times
History is full of circles, many understood but many more beyond understanding. Often circles are more than simple shapes. Instead, they are experienced as sacred circles by indigenous communities. Sacred circles are based on an aboriginal approach to healing, as…
Only one-fourth of Republican parents say children should be taught the legacy of slavery still affects Black people today — and other findings from a new Pew survey
Parent eruptions at local school board meetings over the past couple of years are based in real and dramatic differences of opinion about what should be taught in America’s public schools, according to new data from Pew Research. For example,…
Four reasons saying grace is important
As we enter October, the holiday season is coming up quickly. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Most of these holidays entail some sort of celebration that involves food. Even if you are not celebrating a specific holiday, this is the time of…
Most Americans oppose high court’s decimation of church-state separation, surveys show
Despite recent Supreme Court cases that chopped chinks in the “wall of separation” between church and state, most Americans believe government and religion should butt out of each other’s business, according to polls conducted by the Pew Research Center. The…
When it comes to leading corporate prayer, are we really all in this together?
Let’s talk about corporate prayer. Houston, we’ve got a problem. Yes, I know it is dangerous to hold oneself out as an expert on anything related to prayer. My true confession is that I’m a whole lot better at praying…
Create in me a clean heart
We cringe to see the result of hate and anger in the world: bullying, mudslinging, demeaning, plotting, scheming, lying and worse. I’ve become aware of its increasing popularity and the draining, negative effect on my spirit. It’s easy to get…
Who’ll be there at the end of your prayer?
It was late in my adolescent chapter of the Fabulous Fifties, and I was a member of the youth group in my home church — the Fifteenth Avenue Baptist Church in Meridian, Miss. Soon, the Sweetheart Banquet would be here…
Pastor’s wife felt the prompt of the Spirit, now she’s the First Lady’s prayer partner
In 2020, Robin Jackson took a leap of faith that has changed her schedule every Wednesday since. During the presidential campaign, then-candidate Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, attended Brookland Baptist Church of West Columbia, S.C., where Jackson’s husband, Charles,…