Mike and Marie Meaney of Bellevue, Washington, have a unique ministry in their retirement years.

After completing 40 years in their respective careers as caterer and teacher, they knew God wasn't through with them. Sensing God's direction, Marie, on her 60th birthday, flew to Lusaka, Zambia, Central Africa, to assess needs of teachers and students.

She returned home and began writing a curriculum for ...

Thousands are coming to hear him preach. His ministry has gone global. He has a new book coming out. That's quite a résumé for a boy without any arms or legs!

Nick Vujicic, a 25-year-old Australian, was born without limbs. Vujicic's parents, devout Christians who planted a church in Australia 11 months before Nick was born, found it hard to understand how God could use their son's loss for ...

By the time of his 22nd arrest—following a dramatic chase through Miami [that involved] many police cars and much shooting—John Sala had reached the end of the line. Guilty of the attempted murder of a policeman, aggravated assault, and grand theft, he was headed to jail for a long time.

But jail, of all places, turned out to be his saving grace…

Sent to a prison in Avon Park, Florida, ...

In a 2009 article in Time magazine, writer Coco Masters shared a startling statistic: one in five Japanese men and women have seriously considered taking their lives, and each year over the past decade, more than 30,000 people have killed themselves in that country. But Masters surrounded those troubling statistics with the story of Yukio Shige. It's because of Shige that at least 188 Japanese men ...

In the Preaching Today illustration Mark Buchanan on Real Community, pastor and author Mark Buchanan shares the conversion story of an alcoholic named Wanda. In a 2008 article for Leadership journal, Mark was able to tell the rest of her story:

Wanda did well for about eight months—got into Alpha and a 12-step group, got her kids back. Then she didn't do well, in and out—mostly out—of ...

When 13-year-old Lauren Blakemore was newly diagnosed with cancer, she heard a sermon at her home church, Southeast Christian in Louisville, Kentucky, and she knew God wanted her to do mission work with cancer kids. She said, "I can give them hope by telling my story."

Lauren's cancer, a primitive neuroectodermal tumor, was rare and aggressive. There are only about 450 cases diagnosed a year, and the ...

In the wake of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina, many stories emerged. Deann Alford reported on one couple who provided ministry in a time of great need.

In T-shirts and pajama bottoms they'd worn for four days and shoes caked in New Orleans sludge, Christopher and Monika Sheppard arrived at Houston's Astrodome. In one arm was a cardboard box that held all they owned that the rising waters ...

Dead Man Walking is based on a true story about Sister Helen Prejean (played by Susan Sarandon), a nun who agrees to offer spiritual counsel to Matthew Poncelet, a man on death row. This angers Mr. and Mrs. Percy, the parents of the teenage girl Poncelet murdered, as they can't understand how she could sympathize with someone who committed such a savage act.

In one scene, Sister Helen is sitting with ...

In the summer of 2003, David Timothy bought an old van with 265,000 miles on it, with the help of his wife and a friend. They dubbed it SoupMobile and started taking food to the homeless of Dallas, Texas.

Timothy had wanted to open a soup kitchen for a long time, partly because he grew up poor and hungry, though never homeless. In the name of Christ, SoupMan—who calls himself a nondenominational ...

With the growth of the multinational church, mission is becoming multidirectional. The U.S. remains the largest single contributor of Protestant cross-cultural missionaries. But which country is the second largest? Not a Western nation, but India. And it is possible that India has overtaken the States in the number of those involved in truly cross-cultural mission—both within and beyond India. ...