This time of year is often characterized by a full social calendar of holiday concerts, plays, and parties, busy schedules of planning, shopping, preparing for guests, and traveling. For most of us, it is a time to enjoy family members both near and far, and I must admit that for me the entire season from Thanksgiving to New Years Day is one long feast of delicious food and delightful gatherings of the people I love and cherish. I appreciate the rhythm of the calendar year more and more as I age, and I am heartily aware of the Christian calendar of remembrance which is the heartbeat of that rhythm. I…

Planet Earth orbits the Sun in such a way as to produce different seasons: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall. Where I live, we usually experience all four of them fairly distinctly. And with every change of season, I am ready for the change. The season is just long enough to make me eager for something new. By the time Spring begins to warm, I’m ready to shed my heavy sweaters and appreciate the vibrant colors all around. By the time Summer heats up, I’m ready to enjoy the pool and take afternoon naps under a ceiling fan. By the time Autumn arrives, I’m ready for hot soup, the apple harvest, and…

I learned to pray kneeling by my bed next to my father when I was a young child. I listened to him address the Father. I felt the passion of his heart cries and the joy of his adoration. I was touched by the presence of the One to whom he was speaking. With my eyes tight shut, I knew “Someone” had come into the room because Daddy had called to Him. Yes, I knew the presence of God before I was saved. It was what made me want to be saved. Later, as a teenager, I would sit at the top of the stairs and listen as my father…

“Forsake not the gathering of the saints…” (Hebrews 10:25) I have been part of a church community all my life. My father accepted the call to ministry when he was a teenager and was pastoring a small church in rural Mississippi by the time he was barely more than 20. He was just turning 22 when I was born. To say that I “grew up in church” might sound a bit dramatic, but it is literally the truth. The spiritual family has always been a real experience for me. A cross-cultural, cross-generational melting pot of humanity in all the wonder and chaos of diversity that the human race represents. As…