Almighty God, whom truly to know is everlasting life: Grant us so perfectly to know your Son Jesus Christ to be the way, the truth, and the life, that we may steadfastly follow his steps in the way that leads to eternal life; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. BCP Read more

Chris Castaldo was raised on Long Island, New York where he worked full-time in the Catholic Church. Chris previously served as a pastor at College Church of Wheaton and then as Director of the Ministry of Gospel Renewal at Wheaton College. He is now Lead Pastor at New Covenant Church in Naperville, Illinois. The following interview revolves around Castaldo’s latest book, Talking with Catholics about the Gospel. David George Moore, also a former Roman Catholic, conducted the interview. Dave’s recent... Read more

Good deed of the week, from AP: GUN BARREL CITY, Texas (AP) — A customer eating alone at a Texas restaurant left a big surprise behind for an 18-year-old waitress — a $1,000 tip. Alesha Palmer says she was so stunned by the gift she began crying in the middle of Vetoni’s Italian Restaurant in Gun Barrel City, a small community about 50 miles southeast of Dallas. The high school senior told Tyler television station KLTV (http://bit.ly/1VrIF15 ) that she... Read more

CNN: Several California cities ranked high on the ALA’s air pollution offenders list, with Los Angeles coming in at No. 1 for ozone pollution. Bakersfield ranked at the top for particle pollution, which can increase risk of cardiovascular and lung issues. Here are the top 10 cities with the worst ozone or particle pollution: 1. Los Angeles-Long Beach, California 2. Bakersfield, California 3. Visalia-Porterville-Hanford, California 4. Fresno-Madera, California 5. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale, Arizona 6. Sacramento-Roseville, California 7. Modesto-Merced, California 8. Denver-Aurora, Colorado... Read more

Julie Beck: And his path was not atypical of the 19th century, at least for a white man in the United States. Young people often went through periods of independence interspersed with periods of dependence. If that seems surprising, it’s only because of the “myth that the transition to adulthood was more seamless and smoother in the past,” writes Steven Mintz, a professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin, in his history of adulthood, The Prime of... Read more

By John Frye Last time I mentioned that good biblical communicators cannot be mass-produced just as Michelin Star chefs cannot be run off an assembly line. The art of pastoral preaching, in particular, is like a fingerprint in that no two pastors (must) preach the same. Why is that? The art of pastoral preaching is highly contextual. Three levels of context must be carefully kept in mind by the communicator. Level one: Assuming that the communicator has some ability in... Read more

Sarah Kaplan: Scientists are still sorting out exactly why animals need sleep, but it’s readily apparent that we do. In the 1980s, a famous study deprived rats of sleep for 30 days — and every single one of them died. In people, short-term sleeplessness can cause blood pressure to increase and body temperature to drop; it weakens the immune response and impairs cognitive function. Just about everything in the human body is set up to help us rest at night, starting with the eyes. A... Read more

Carolyn Custis James (Go to the link to read the full article.) There is no togetherness for the gospel when the victim stands alone.” —James Kessler The recent 2016 Together for the Gospel (T4G) conference in Louisville, Kentucky put on public display one of the biggest complementarian manhood failures in recent history. Not only did the leaders of this all-male organization refuse to stand by their masculinity manifesto—that “real men” are the protectors of women and children—these men circled the... Read more

The next chapter of Matthew Nelson Hills new book  Evolution and Holiness: Sociobiology, Altruism, and the Quest for Weslyan Perfection explores a topic at the cutting edge of science – the existence or not of human freedom … the free will question. This is a question I’ve posted on a number of times over the years.  Is there any such thing as free will?  Not libertine free will with choice unconstrained by body, brain.  This clearly doesn’t exist. We are... Read more