My son, Aaron, was five or six when he began asking me, "What does God's voice sound like?" I didn't know how to answer.

A few years later, Aaron went off to his first junior high camp. In the middle of the week, I went up with another pastor at Mosaic to see our kids. Aaron, I learned, had started to assault another kid but had been held back by his friends. He was unrepentant, wanted to leave camp, ...

I can't live Jesus' life and Jesus knows that, but he says: You can ask me to come and live my life in you.

I'll give you a picture of this. Nancy and I were in a part of the country we had never been before. We were going to be driving on obscure back roads, so we got a rental car, and the guy at the counter said to me, "Along with this car, if you want, you can also get a GPS system." Have you ever ...

As a child, I was captivated by Jesus' words on prayer [in Matthew 6:5–6]. …

In the wee ranch house where I grew up, my bedroom was my sanctuary. But my real "inner sanctum," the only space that made me feel uninhibited enough to unload my youthful angst onto God, was my closet. Crouched in its dark, tiny confines, I'd spill tears of anger and words of confusion over childhood slights and perceived ...

In his book Thoughts in Solitude, Thomas Merton wrote fifteen lines that have become known as "the Merton Prayer":

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please ...

In the September/October 2007 issue of Today's Christian, Shirley Shaw tells the story of how the sacrifices of a successful cabinet maker named Terry Lane continue to change a drug-riddled neighborhood in Jacksonville, Florida.

My business had prospered to the point my 40-man staff needed more space to produce the quality cabinets for which Mid-Lane was well known. We found an ideal location in northwest ...

I was born in the waning days of vinyl records. I would watch as my father pulled them from their sleeves and placed them on the turntable. When the needle dropped into the record's grooves, the speakers popped to life with a tide of white noise that was chased away by music. Some records were so worn that they hiccupped along or—even worse—repeated a section, over and over again.

The sound ...

In his book Revolutionary Parenting, George Barna says there are three dominant approaches to parenting in the United States.

Parenting by default is what Barna terms the path of least resistance. This approach is influenced by cultural norms and traditions. The objective is to keep everyone as happy as possible so the parents can still enjoy the other prioritized aspects of their lives.

Trial-and-error ...

In his book Building a Church of Small Groups, Bill Donahue relays a story from his time as a part-time youth pastor while attending seminary. He was visiting a farm where two of his students lived, and their father decided to teach Bill a lesson:

He asked if I could help call in the sheep. I enthusiastically agreed. Sheep-calling was like preaching. We stood at the pasture fence, watching 25 sheep ...

In data collected from over 20,000 Christians in 139 countries (though mostly in America) and between the ages of 15 and 88, The Obstacles to Growth Survey found that, on average, more than 4 in 10 Christians around the world say they "often" or "always" rush from task to task. About 6 in 10 Christians say that it's "often" or "always" true that "the busyness of life gets in the way of developing ...

He arrived at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, during my junior year, 1947-48. A German who had spent time as a prisoner of war, he was now working as a janitor, sweeping the halls and cleaning the restrooms of Blanchard Hall.

Many of my fellow students had served in World War II; some had even been prisoners of war themselves. We heard that this man had served in the German military forces, but ...