Archive for April, 2009
The Porn Plague
Thursday, April 30th, 2009If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!A reader contacted me the other day, upset that she had discovered a DVD outlet in her town rented a plethora of pornographic movies. She complained to the store, the district manager and even the police, but to no […]
Going Back to Prison, Voluntarily
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009Steve “Gator” Gaede is an unlikely person to be ministering to inmates every Friday at Maricopa County, Ariz., Jail. Born with a severe facial deformity, he spent a haunted childhood undergoing numerous experimental operations and being taunted by other children because of his double cleft lip and palette. Understandably, he grew up angry and mean. […]
Ministering in the Wake of Tragedy
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009Naomi Knoles is serving a 10-year prison term for murdering her baby. The September 2003 tragedy caught her parents John and Doris off guard. They had sensed that their backslidden daughter was stressed and tired, but they didn’t have a clue that she had slipped into a psychotic state, during which she would smother her […]
Making Church in Our Own Image
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009In my half century of churchgoing I’ve seen plenty of laypeople try to intimidate pastors by insisting they avoid certain preaching topics, complaining about a particular style of worship music and upholding one unbiblical tradition or another just because the church has always done it that way.
I’ve seen an elder quit on the spot when […]
Valueless reporting
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009I’ve been perturbed recently by a couple of media reports in which there is no attempt to provide a point of view that immoral behavior is wrong.
The first story involved the murder of 47-year-old ABC News broadcaster George Weber. Coverage in newspapers and on TV repeatedly described Weber as a gentle soul with no enemies. […]