I recently took a 45-minute drive in an old, beat-up van with a guy I barely know. Along the way we ended up talking about Jesus and whether this man would give his life to Christ. His response to me laid out humanity's resistance to the gospel with striking clarity. He said, "My biggest problem is pride. I can't humble myself. And you wanna know the reason I can't give up my pride?" He leaned up ...

...

Vinny says he is not a preacher. He is a self-described "working stiff from Independence, Missouri." But Vinny hopes that he can help end the murders and crime—"the kind of bloody violence that he saw as a kid and that is consuming Kansas City's east side." He believes that "if people come to know Christ in a personal way, they not only won't want to commit any violence, they're not going ...

In 1934, Hitler's plague of anti-Semitism was spreading throughout Europe like wildfire. Some would escape it. Millions would die from it. But an 11-year-old boy named Heinz would learn from it. Heinz was a Jew who lived in the Bavarian village of Furth with his family. As tension mounted between the Jews and Germans in that community, Heinz's father, a schoolteacher, lost his job, and his family ...

Charles Lyons, pastor of Armitage Baptist Church in Chicago, Illinois, writes:

...

The night the Chicago Bulls won the NBA championship in 1993, a young kid—I think his name was Julio—was caught up in the crowd leaving the arena. The Imperial Gangsters were out that night, making sure no rival gangs were blending in the crowd to cross their turf. I don't know if Julio was wearing the wrong ...

Armitage Baptist Church pastor Charles Lyons writes on the topic of praying for the streets of Chicago:

During the 1980s the OA gang dominated our area. We created a prayer patrol of three or four teams of two men each. These were men with street savvy, men who knew the language and weren't intimidated easily.

Normally when a gang hangs out on a corner, nobody goes near them. Once a young man puts ...

The TV show "60 Minutes" ran a segment that tells us something important about fatherlessness.

The park rangers at a South African wildlife preserve were concerned about the slaughter of 39 rare white rhinos in their park. It turned out that the rhinos were killed not by poachers but rather by juvenile delinquents—teen elephants.

The story began a decade ago when the park could no longer sustain the ...

Though I was barely 6 years of age, I well remember sitting by a roaring fire on a Sunday during World War 2. Our family had fled the bombs that rained down on us one night, chasing us hundreds of miles away to the beautiful English lake district--William Wordsworth country.

The mists were gone, and a storm had broken over our heads. The rain, like giant tears, slashed against the window pane, and ...