Right now I’m noticing churches everywhere in the U.S. are feeling the need to make cuts in their budgets because of the economy.  If history repeats itself, the first thing to go in church budgets is going to be “missions” (foreign and domestic).  While I don’t advocate this, I also don’t take a traditional view to things like missions/outreach budgets.  As your congregation navigates these financially challenging times, I’d like to speak a word to my supporters and friends. 

Why let money get in the way of supporting missions?  God doesn’t.  Let’s do missions in his image – by sending

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Categories: the how
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The public drunkard.  It seems every urban village has one (or several in some cases).  In our neighborhood the young people tease him, dare him to do foolish things, push him around in a circle.  Nobody takes this fifty-something man seriously.  And yet I recall the stories Ed tells us about how he watched men like this gradually transform into reliable men and godly leaders in his parents’ church.  Anything is possible with Jesus.

Inside the man’s apartment is a tiny old woman, praying, always praying for her lost son.  The pages of her Bible are frayed from thorough reading.  Worried sick, she verbally beats him down by reading highlighted scriptures that condemn him for drinking too much and doing drugs.  He whines at her to stop telling him things he already knows.  “I know I’m sinning.  I want to stop.  I know I need the Lord,” he complains to me. “He never listens.  El Diablo is in him,” she complains to me.

In his hands, the bottle is a taskmaster, controlling and condemning him.  In her hands, the Bible is a tool for controlling and condemning him.  Look at the mother’s face and you see the worry lines the son has put on her.  Look at the son’s demeanor and you see the spiritual scars the mother has inflicted on him.  Both have abused.  Both need to be liberated.  God, come to the rescue!

Categories: stories
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You’re going to love this story Hector shared with me this evening.

Today Hector and Roxy are walking their girls home from school.  Madelina (age 6) is feeling bad that she forgot to thank God for her breakfast this morning.  She stops and kneels on the sidewalk and puts her hands together, thanking God for her food, her parents, her health and several other things that come to her mind.  Hector and Roxy look around – there are people passing by.  Get up, Hector thinks to himself.  But Madelina just won’t stop praying.  So Hector shrugs his shoulders, kneels on the sidewalk, puts his arm around his little girl and starts praying too, thanking God for everything under the sun!  When all is said and done, they get up and walk a little farther, but Madelina remembers she has forgotten something else.  So she makes her daddy kneel again to tell God thank you one more time.  Right there next to the busy street, crowds of Angelenos all around.  Do think God is pleased?

From the lips of children.

[Names have been changed.  All other details are accurate.]

Categories: stories
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