It is a real issue. Cloudy days, over-scheduling, travel, less than healthy food, inactivity, and a dash of grief or personal troubles can give Christians momentary moments of sadness or spiraling depression. I am in the habit of taking a “tip list” from a secular mental-health professional and juicing up their human prescriptions with a… Read More »
Marriage Is God
Marriage is God’s institution? No. God created marriage? Not quite. God is reflected in marriage? I mean; true but not we’re after. God is a covenant keeping God (Yes!) and marriage is his covenant between a man, a woman, and the Lord. Wait, I fell asleep just reading the title.… Read More »
Choosing A Mate (2024 version)
Editor’s note: This article is from eleven years ago. The first sentence is more true today than then. The rest isn’t bad either, he said humbly.-JS] In the past week, our family celebrated Mother’s Day and the 16th anniversary of Wendy saying “Yes” to a question I am sure she didn’t fully comprehend at the… Read More »
Does My Seven-Year-Old Need Baptism?
“before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.”-Isaiah 7:12 The importance of this question is matched only by my inability to give it a satisfactory answer. At age seven, I would confidently say, “No.” At eight or nine, most young… Read More »
Uneasy Lies The Head That Wears A Crown
President Harry Truman had a plaque on his desk which read, “The buck stops here.” Truman was reacting to the reputation of typical politicians who would, “pass the buck” when it came to making actual decisions, standing on principle, or clearly stating an honest opinion. Truman understood how heavy those decisions could be. He was… Read More »
Mid-Year Report 2022
This is our first full reporting period of the post-COVID era1. Last year we noted an elder at a large congregation in middle Tennessee reported their attendance was down 15-percent. It is estimated only one-in-ten churches gained in numbers during 2020-2021. North Second Street actually saw a slight increase in 2021 as we got back… Read More »
The Hoary Head And Delayed Justice
“Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God: I am the Lord.”-Leviticus 19:32 (KJV) The phrase “hoary head” refers to a man with gray or white hair. We don’t use the word “hoary” much anymore but to an Englishman from 400-years ago,… Read More »
Fair Warning: I Make No Promise This Will Be Uplifting
In the same year I crossed the half-century mark of my sojourn on earth, it occurred to me I had lived more of my life without my mother than I had with her. I was 25-years-old and in my second year of college when Nancy Jane Sage took her last breath. She fought breast cancer… Read More »