New Trail
In 2007, New Trail Fellowship near Abilene (Ks.) was launched to serve the western heritage community of the Smoky Valley Region by...
Transition
One way to ease the stress of transition is to prepare in advance (Mt.16:21; Jn. 14-17). After 23 years, the pastor of Highland Park...
Evaluation
For better or worse, your church is being evaluated every Sunday. On the way home, someone will ask, “What did you think of the sermon?”...
Multiethnic Community
We live in a time of unprecedented human mobility. In 2015, according to United Nations estimates, 232 million people migrated from one...
Miracles and Messes
There are times when God breaks into our lives with miracles above and beyond our expectations (Eph. 3:20-21). We laugh and shout and...
Churches Helping Churches
The phrase “one another” is used 100 times in the New Testament. Yet mutual assistance among churches can be a rare occurrence in a North...
One tenth
Jesus talked a lot about money because he wanted to change hearts. “For where your treasure is,” he said, “there your heart will be also”...
Impossible
When Hudson Taylor first sailed to China in 1853, there were only a few dozen missionaries, all in coastal cities. Taylor adopted Chinese...
Qualifying Résumés
Contemporary designations, such as “governing board” or “leadership team,” are not biblical terms. Yet there is a clear mandate for...
Small Footprint
C.S. Lewis writes that pride “is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone loathes when he sees it in someone else;...
Friends
In the Old Testament, God spoke to exceptional individuals, like Moses, “face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Ex. 33:11; Ps....
Global Shifts
Is the Christian faith dying? It may seem that way in Europe and North America. In an article in the Washington Post (May 20, 2015), Wes...
Comparisons
One uncomfortable aspect of life together is comparisons. In response to this common human problem, a biblical songwriter makes a bold...
Whispers
Any conflict, small or large, is like throwing a rock into a pond. The ripples wash over others in widening circles of dissension. When...
People
As a cashier at a supermarket, I interacted with the men, woman, and children who streamed through my check-out line. From them, I gained...
