“Our world is in need of a savior!” A line we might expect to come right out of a sermon in a church. But, it’s not. If we are paying attention, we can hear it being whispered from different corners…
Ministering to travelers on Christmas Eve
I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but I couldn’t help overhearing her pain, frustration, and determination. The lady I sat down beside in the busy terminal was obviously troubled. As I took a load off and tried to find my boarding…
Weeping prophets, deep lament
By Greg Jarrell The author, who leads an intentional Christian community in Charlotte, N.C., attended the recent annual national conference of the Christian Community Development Association, a network of Christians committed to wholistic restoration for communities spiritually, emotionally, physically, economically…
disinterested religion + the art of unemployment
Occasionally, there are days-and even moments within days-when heavy clouds pull in front of the sun, blocking its light from view and casting everything in the empty parking lot outside my office window, in shadows. A few years ago, I…
Grief isn’t a disease
She’d lost her husband to a terrible, slow disease and now had just buried her son. I asked her how she was. “Some days, she said, “I just stand in the middle of my house and scream.” What a wise…
Where is God when bad stuff happens?
Where is God when bad things happen? Across the ages, this question has perplexed and frustrated those afflicted with suffering, grief, and pain. Theologians and philosophers have wrestled with scriptural texts and rational thought striving to make sense of the…
Forever Changed #2: giving life and those who have given theirs
I have been wondering all week what God was going to give to me to share with you all and now I know. I have been in country 7 whole days now, and we have had more mortar attacks than…
The shortest blog on record
“That is why I started to write. To save myself.” Eldridge Cleaver in Soul on Ice I suspect that is also why some people started to preach.
‘Forever Changed’: Fellow Warriors
My Journal Writings from Balad AB, Iraq April 2005 – Sept 2005 The following is an account of my fourth deployment into the Global War on Terror. I wrote this as a weekly journal/email account I sent back home to…