Heading home to California … a friend and I passed through the Dallas–Fort Worth airport. On the way to the connecting gate, we heard loud patriotic music playing and saw a group, mostly women, wearing colorful hats, cheering, and waving American flags. The troops were coming home, and here was their welcoming committee.

Two women encouraged us to grab flags and join in. We were early for our ...

Orthodox Church officials in Russia discovered in 2008 that one of their church buildings had disappeared. Poof—gone! The 200-year-old building northeast of Moscow had gone unused for a decade, but the Orthodox Church, which was experiencing growth, was considering reopening the church building, and that's when they discovered their building wasn't there.

They had to get to the bottom of this. ...

In a Seinfeld episode entitled "The Engagement," Jerry and his friend, George Costanza (Jason Alexander), have decided it's time to "grow up" and treat the women they date with a little more respect (George has just broken up with a woman because she beat him in chess). The conversation leaves such an indelible mark on George that he immediately looks up an old girlfriend, goes to her apartment, and ...

A film made in 2002, The Magdalene Sisters, told the sad story of the "maggies" of Ireland. They got that nickname from Mary Magdalene, a revealing story in itself. The gospels mention only one fact of Mary Magdalene's past, that Jesus had driven seven demons from her. Nevertheless, a tradition grew that Mary Magdalene must have been the same woman as the prostitute who washed Jesus' feet with her ...

As Stan Caffy prepared for married life, he and his bride-to-be cleaned out their respective garages and sold everything to Goodwill. Between the two of them, they sold an assortment of clothes, bicycles, tools, computer parts, and a tattered copy of the Declaration of Independence that had been hanging in Stan's garage for the last decade.

Stan's trash turned out to be another man's treasure.

That ...

A few years ago, an old acquaintance of mine served as a police officer in a northern native settlement in Canada. One day a rabid wolf wandered into the aboriginal settlement. My friend eventually shot it, but not before it attacked a young man and his grandmother in their home, making kindling out of a chair the young man used to protect himself from his attacker.

There were about 150 sled dogs in ...

I'm not a vampire type, when somebody shows me the cross. …But organized religion gives me the creeps.

—Stephen King, U. S. fiction writer

...

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 ...

Once upon a time, the annual celebration of Thanksgiving was also an occasion for sober reflection….

Our nation, and its pursuit of liberty and justice for all, has always had enemies, more today than ever. But in earlier times, our nation's leaders recognized that the most dangerous enemy came from within—not traitors, anarchists, or terrorists, but the very people and government committed ...

Text: John 15:1–7

Purpose: To visualize the powerlessness of depending on ourselves rather than God.

Objects: An electric power strip with multiple outlets (the kind that computers and appliances are plugged into). One or two appliances and a light.

Experience: Hold up the power strip for everyone to see and say: "You have all seen one of these. We use power strips to plug computers or appliances ...