Leonard Sweet’s newest release, Nudge: Awakening Each Other To The God Who’s Already There (David C. Cook, 2010) will make you fall in love with evangelism again.  Or more likely, for the first time. Many of us who follow Jesus have been exposed to evangelism as hard-sell, complete with tips and techniques. Or it’s a…

Last week, my husband and I visited a congregation we’d first attended nearly thirty years ago. We didn’t see many familiar faces – not that we even would have recognized any of them. Thirty years is a long time, and people change. It is quite possible that a few of those folks from the days…

If all the words in the blogosphere and broadcast media about this weekend’s 9/11 Qur’an bonfire in Florida and the furor over the planned “Ground Zero Mosque” were committed to ink and paper, I have a feeling the entire Pacific Northwest would be 90% deforested by now. There are a lot of people exercising (and…

Dear Preacher, I just did some math, and discovered that there have been 1,716 Sundays in my life from age 18 to now. I’ve been in church most of those Sundays listening to your messages. I’ve also listened to a fair share of messages over the years via radio, cassette tape, CD, and even recently,…

Q: Would you drive 45+ minutes to attend an ideal church service each week or would you become a part of a church community with whom you differed on some points of doctrine and practice right in your own backyard? Though we’ve all been told that consumer Christianity is a bad thing, the truth is…

Friends in liturgical churches are honoring Jesus’ mother Mary (Miryam) today/tomorrow. Suffice it to say that the various traditions have a pretty wide range of opinion about the way she lived and died. I can gladly rest in the fact that this faithful Jewish teen said ‘yes’ to the Lord in ways that most of…