A few months ago, during worship, as the congregation was standing and singing together, I noticed something. My friend, Alan Nesbitt, a music teacher who often leads singing for our church, had his tuning fork stuck in his belt. He wasn’t leading singing that day, but he still had his tuning fork with him. My first thought was […]
Parent as Poet
My family and I serve as missionaries in Mozambique. Most Sundays, we’re out in one village or another, the five of us worshipping under a thatch roof with a local church. I usually end up preaching to a few dozen people, communicating in a language that is not my native tongue. The people we’ve worked with […]
The Soundtrack of Childhood
Raising our family in Africa means that our daughters have a very different “soundtrack” to their childhood than the one I grew up with. There are the animal noises (roosters, goats and bush babies), the cotton gin humming in the background, the mangoes dropping on our roof, and the termites chewing on our bamboo fence(!). […]
Embracing a Pigpen Spirituality
In the interest of full disclosure, I should start by telling you that I have a complicated relationship with the “Peanuts” Comic Strip. I tend to cringe, resist, and pull back from all things related to Snoopy and Co. You see, back in high school, I played the role of Charlie Brown in a student […]
Sir Raleigh, Storytelling, and the Sea
A wonderful painting hangs on the wall of my office. This gift from my lovely wife is a reproduction of Millais’ The Boyhood of Raleigh, and I hope it continues working its way into my heart and imagination. James K. A. Smith summarizes well the story behind this painting (2016, 92): “Sir Walter Raleigh, you […]
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- Next Page »