The little boy lived on an average street with average friends. They all lived in an average small town. He had average parents who had an average number of children for the time. In fact, if asked to describe his life in a single word, the little boy would surely have replied, “Average.”

Soon fate would take an interest in the little boy. His average life would start down a path toward becoming anything but.

At 8 he was rescued by firefighters and knew what he wanted to be. By 10, he witnessed the first spacewalk on a black and white television and knew what he wanted to be. Read More»

So, here’s the question: “What good are sermons?” You may be thinking, “I’ve been wondering that for years!”

In evangelical and charismatic churches, the sermon is the centerpiece, the focal point, the high water mark of the worship service (as least that’s what pastors think). In liturgical/sacramental churches, it may not be the center of the service but it’s still viewed as highly important.

When I was a young minister starting out, just in my early 20s, I was told that “For every minute of sermon, there should be an hour of study and preparation.” Read More»

Last week, I presided over the funeral of a 96-year-old lady. She was a remarkable woman who graduated from hospice twice. The first time she willed herself out, she told her daughters, “I’m not going to die, I’m going home.” And she did.

Shortly after that, she walked in Southwest Christian Hospice’s 5K and raised the second-highest amount of money. Two days before falling and breaking some ribs, she had been on her treadmill and exercise bike.

When I visited her in the hospital, I asked, “Don’t you want to make it to 100? You’re so close.”
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The last time there was a terrorist attack on America, we got the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration.

Each entity has spent billions to keep us safe, but neither could stop two brothers, Tamerlan, a permanent resident, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a newly minted U.S. citizen, who lived in America and, reportedly, became radicalized jihadists, from killing and maiming innocent people at the Boston Marathon last week. Read More»

Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence. – Psalm 73:6

“Gay pride” necessitates anti-Christian hate.

It must. “Gay marriage” and other “sexual orientation”-based laws do violence to freedom and truth. They are the hammer with which the postmodern left intends to bludgeon bloody religious liberty and the Judeo-Christian sexual ethic.

According to the unequivocal moral precepts of the Judeo-Christian tradition – explicit throughout both the Old and New Testaments – homosexual behavior is sin. Sin is evil. Read More»

“Climate change has many faces,” notes the website for Earth Day 2013, which took place Monday, April 22. “A man in the Maldives worried about relocating his family as sea levels rise, a farmer in Kansas struggling to make ends meet as prolonged drought ravages the crops ... the polar bear in the melting arctic, the tiger in India’s threatened mangrove forests. ...”

It’s a lengthy list. Unfortunately, it’s incomplete.

It’s time to add a few more faces to the pitiful environment painted by Earth Day organizers.

• An entrepreneur and small business shouldering the regulatory burden. Read More»

[Editor’s note: A version of this article first appeared at Investor’s Business Daily.]

Maybe it’s a measure of progressives’ refusal to look back, to always move “forward.” Otherwise, they should be celebrating right now.

In fact, President Obama and fellow modern progressives/liberals should be ecstatic all this year, rejoicing over the centenary of something so fundamental to their ideology, to their core goals of government, to their sense of economic and social justice — to what Obama once called “redistributive change.” Read More»

Little Danny McGuire was the scrawniest kid in class. He was so frail, so downright skinny that his dungarees clung to his bony hips only thanks to a well-worn brown belt that was pulled tight to the last notch, causing the fabric to gather in folds. What a sight he made with blue jeans cinched to the waist and little ol’ legs hidden somewhere in the yards of material. Read More»

Like many parents, I’ve been around youth sports for years and I loved watching my children play. It was great when we came home with a win and disappointing when we didn’t. But the point of the game was to learn sportsmanship, learn the game, to exercise, and to have fun. In all of those years of youth athletics, very few of the children who played on teams with my kids went on to receive scholarships in college for their sports and none of them, as far as I know, became professional athletes.  Read More»

They looked like leaves, two lime-green leaves in a jumble, caught on the outside of the screenporch that allows us to have doors open at night. When I looked at them more intently, they transformed from tangled leaves to two large moths with wings tightly folded together.

The large insects appeared to be still in the process of extending their wings and legs, inflating them from weeks in pupae, making ready to take to the air.

I needed to start our dinner, but I decided to keep watch over the moths lest a bird or other predator decided to take them out for dinner. Read More»