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What good are sermons?

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»

David Epps's blog
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What next after Boston?

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»

Religious liberty vs. ‘gay marriage’

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»

Earth Day: For many, there’s little to celebrate

“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»

The progressive income tax turns 100

[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»

Being Danny McGuire

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»

Ronda Rich's blog
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Parents: behave yourselves

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»

Greg Moffatt's blog
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Luna Moth Mysteries

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»

Sallie Satterthwaite's blog
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Should weapons be banned? Part 2

There are always those who believe, with all sincerity, that weapons of any kind should be outlawed. The reasoning is that, if no one had weapons, society would be a much safer place. Any conflicts would be handled with words and, at most, with fists. There would be injuries, of course, but not destruction on the scale currently experienced.

The same sort of thinking is often applied to the world scene. If there were no nuclear weapons, and no weapons of any kind, the world would be a safer place. Read More»

Bad things happen

With four boys, one girl, and Dad, Mom was always in a constant state of movement. To be honest, I really don’t remember ever seeing her sit down — except for dinner.

But even then, she sat only for a couple of minutes. That was about how long it took until one of us knocked over a drink, dropped something on the floor, or gulped down our food and asked for seconds. Read More»

Rick Ryckeley's blog
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