I had been praying regularly with the deacons for one of our members. His wife, Pat, attended our small congregation faithfully, but John hadn't been to church in years. So every Sunday afternoon before the evening service, we prayed for ways to communicate our commitment to John and his family.

It wasn't long before we received an answer. During the morning service one week, Pat told us through tears ...

Fire swept through Southern California from the north of Los Angeles to the Mexican border during October, 2007. Five hundred thousand acres were burned up, a half-million people displaced from their communities, and 2,000 homes destroyed in the blazes.

But in Rancho Bernardo, in a Presbyterian church in which 60 families lost their homes, worshipers met to give thanks. One reporter noted, "They gave ...