By Michelle Van Loon My friend Joy and her family relocated to a new state a few months ago. I checked in with her recently, and asked her if they’d found a church yet. There was a long pause before she answered. “Committing to a new congregation is a lot harder than I thought it would be. We’ve been through so much when it comes to church.” After he left seminary, Joy’s husband had been on staff at a church... Read more

The Book of Proverbs and women. What it says about and by women surprises. Many miss this; but not Glenn Pemberton in his excellent new book, A Life That Is Good. What do we learn? First, let’s call it a strategy — Pemberton thinks the audience is largely young men and women are used to speak to get their attention? Agree? If we were the writers and our audience consisted of young men, naive and inexperienced as they stepped out to... Read more

Who is your favorite coffee Roaster? This site just ranked America’s Top 25, with two from Chicago: What does it take to be one of the best coffee roasters in America? To some critics, it’s innovation — the willingness to throw “rules” by the wayside and the skill to revolutionize new roasting practices, all in the name of better coffee. For others, it’s taste, perhaps best exemplified in a roaster’s selectiveness when hunting for the finest green coffees in the... Read more

When it comes to science and Christian faith several outstanding books have appeared this year. My personal favorite is Andy Walsh’s Faith Across the Multiverse. In this book Walsh mixes fiction (usually science fiction of a sort), math, science, and the bible to explore our understanding of the Christian faith and the ways it can be made to live in our times. I’ve been slowly working through it and will continue.  This is a good book for the science student,... Read more

We turn in our reading of the patristics to Ignatius, who evidently wrote these letters on his march to Rome to be martyred — sometime during Trajan’s reign. We don’t know much about Ignatius until these letters and in the middle of his trip — somewhere around Philippi — the story of his life is lost. The tradition is that he died in Rome. In our series on the patristic writings, we use the text Michael Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers.... Read more

Source The 2014 Brookings Institution survey scored presidents on a scale of 1 to 100. Leaders were rated on multiple criteria including legislative skill, diplomatic skill, integrity and military skill. 391 members of the American Political Science Association’s Presidents & Executive Politics section, the premier organization of experts of the American presidency, were invited to complete the online survey, which was administered by Brandon Rottinghaus of the University of Houston and Justin S. Vaughn of Boise State University. 162 surveys... Read more

Jesus Creed Book(s) of the Year Time for your Christmas book shopping!! A banner year for me in reading as there were so many great books to read and to choose from. I repeat my annual claim: Jesus Creed books of the year are books I’ve read and there’s no claim to have chosen the best books of the year as I can only see and read so many. Anyway, I wanted to choose one but couldn’t choose just one... Read more

With Christians around the world, we use this light to help us prepare our hearts and minds for the coming of God’s Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. May we receive God’s light as we hear the words of the prophet Isaiah: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness — on them light has shined.” — Isaiah 9:2 Let us pray: Lord as we look to the birth... Read more

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy... Read more

The Atlantic: [A day to honor a man, not to comment on his politics.] He was the last of his kind—the sort who could hold his office without embarrassment or apology, who wore his wartime heroism lightly, who took his duty seriously, but never himself. In contrast to the incumbent of the Oval Office, he looms in memory as the valiant remnant of a Periclean age. … [He declined an interview with Vanity Fair, and here’s his letter — a... Read more