I lived in Boston in the 1980s, and I spoke with a pastor of a major church there. We were reflecting on the ways the church doesn't always recognize the culture cultivators and creators in its midst. This pastor said, "There's a woman in our church who was the lead litigator for the Environmental Protection Agency for the clean up of Boston Harbor. It's occurred to me since then that she played this ...

The Tuesday night prayer meeting at Brooklyn Tabernacle felt like skydiving into a tornado, exhausting and exhilarating all at once. I'd read about the meeting in Pastor Jim Cymbala's book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire, but nothing prepared me for the event itself: 3,500 God-hungry people storming heaven for two hours.

Afterward, my friend and I went out to dinner with the Cymbalas. In the course of the meal, ...

My goal, as a Stanford University student, was to start a Bible study in the Sigma Chi fraternity house. For over a year I could get nothing going. Then came my "God-given opportunity disguised as a hassle."

I was rushing to the campus post office to mail some packages before the morning classes let out. A man on the free-speech platform was pointing out specific sins in the lives of people he'd never ...

Picking, choosing, and deciding which sins are trivial and which are the biggies is a completely human tendency. A young man once told me, "It's like a heavenly bank account. As long as I make more deposits than withdrawals, I'm in good shape."

I shared the biblical reality with him: the very first time he made a withdrawal, the account was emptied and closed forever. He thought that was a bit harsh. ...