Among people surveyed in 17 countries, percentage of those who say they have tried marijuana:

United States: 42.4 percent
New Zealand: 41.9 percent
Netherlands: 19.8 percent
France: 19 percent
Germany: 17.5 percent

Luis Palau, the Argentine-born international evangelist, describes how God expanded his ministry:

...

And the Lord gave me a verse. It sounds a bit bombastic, sort of big-headed, so I don't like to quote it in public. But to paraphrase, the Lord basically says, "I will open up nations to you." I took it personally, as a word from the Lord, and I wrote in the flyleaf of my Bible, "1966 (February, I ...

According to a recent study by the World Health Organization and Harvard Medical School, America may very well be the saddest nation in the world. Researchers found that 9.6 percent of Americans suffer from depression or bipolar disorder—the highest among 14 major nations polled. Those nations that scored better than the U.S. suffer from ongoing wars and rumors of war (Lebanon), vast unemployment ...

According to the Open Doors' 2008 World Watch List, North Korea has been named the worst place for a Christian to live for the sixth year in a row. In North Korea, citizens are strictly banned from worshiping any other gods except those enforced in state religion—a personality cult that celebrates the current dictator, Kim Jong il, and his deceased father, Kim il Sung.

"It is certainly not a ...

My wife, Angie, and I had discussed the idea of adoption for years, both prior to and right after our marriage. But now, when adoption seemed our only recourse [because of our infertility], we made the subject off limits. It felt like an act of surrender rather than a choice. Like a consolation prize. Like second place.

As we balanced the delicate walk between grief and hope, I decided that I had to ...

In her book Radical Gratitude, Ellen Vaughn tells the story of a family friend named Jerry:

Some years ago Jerry was in Russia on a short visit with Prison Fellowship International. He and a group of friends visited a number of prisons, and finished their work a few days early. They asked their hosts if they could go visit children in the hospital.

They were taken to a 750-bed hospital in Moscow at ...

Many Christians, like most of the populace, believe the political structures can cure all our ills. The fact is, however, that government, by its very nature, is limited in what it can accomplish. What it does best is perpetuate its own power and bolster its own bureaucracies.

—Charles (Chuck) Colson, advisor to President Nixon, writer, and founder of Prison Fellowship

I once had the great privilege of traveling to Cuba to teach on worship in a little seminary in Havana and to preach in some house churches. Cuba? Yes, Cuba.

My father went with me on the trip. Our family is from Florida, and in the weeks leading up to the trip, we talked about my parents' memories of weeks of dread during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. We knew we were walking into a history of ...

The United States doesn't always come in first place. UNICEF surveyed 21 of the most developed nations and measured how kids related to other kids, spent time with parents, used alcohol and/or drugs, and perceived their own happiness. Tight-knit nations—like Sweden, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Finland—ranked the highest when it came to young people feeling secure and happy. The U.S. ...

Yuko Maruyama, a Japanese organist working in Minneapolis, was once a devout Buddhist. Now, thanks to the music of J. S. Bach, she is a Christian. "Bach introduced me to God, Jesus, and Christianity," she told Metro Lutheran, a Twin Cities monthly. "When I play a fugue, I can feel Bach talking to God." Masashi Masuda, a Jesuit priest, came to faith in almost the same way: "Listening to Bach's Goldberg ...