When I gave birth to my first child in 1983 at age 24, I realized about thirty-six hours into this new adventure that babysitting as a young teen, assisting with a pack of deaf Boy Scouts in college, and nannying part-time for a few months when I was first married was not sufficient training for motherhood. Though I never consciously figured any of it was, I’d stayed away from parenting books during my pregnancy. After more than a year of... Read more
Hello, 2014. I see you peeking around the corner, waiting to enter the room. Come on in. Sit a spell. 2013 was just leaving. There’s something about the blank pages of a brand-new calendar that inspires many of us to commit to change. Raise your hand if you’ve ever made a New Year’s resolution: I will join a gym – and show up there three times a week. I will quit eating gluten, sugar and dairy. I will watch less... Read more
The recent uproar surrounding charges of plagiarism swirling around some of Mark Driscoll (click here and here) has nearly obscured another story that may have even greater implications for the church – and, ironically, maybe even for Driscoll’s future publishing endeavors. While the late John Howard Yoder’s name is less familiar to mainstream Evangelicals than Driscoll’s, this recent story about how Yoder’s publisher will include a disclaimer on all of his books may reverberate long after Driscoll fades from memory. Other... Read more
At Christmas, the image of an intact nuclear family is at the center of it all. That image, of a mom, a dad and a baby together forming a circle of love, is mirrored for us each year in dozens of different ways from commercials to Hallmark movies to news stories about people traveling at Christmas to get home to the accounts of friends and coworkers talking about their own Christmas plans. For those whose circle has been torn open... Read more
We live as exiles. We’re called to be pilgrims. I am journeying through Scripture, stopping at a few oases along the way, in order to contemplate our exile experience in an occasional series on this blog. I’ll also offer some helpful thoughts about how Christ can reshape that identity and reorient our journey so we live as pilgrims. To read earlier posts in the series, click here. * * * * * * * My husband and I took our kids... Read more
Click here to read part one of this post. It takes a lot of hard work to work in community to hammer out convictions about how to apply Scripture to our lives. Even if I don’t agree with the particular conclusions of particular church or group, it’s been my experience that the evidence of the hard work often shows in the way in which they apply those rules. They are rules after all, which means there are lines and boundaries,... Read more
Recently, I ran across this list, reprinted from Wayne Grudem’s* 2006 book about gender roles in the church. Others are far more able than I to debate just how “Biblical” the content of lists like this really are. Suffice it to say that there are many other wise and faithful scholars and practitioners I respect who would debate the both the structure and the content of this list. Their debate may itself be the truly Biblical response to excruciatingly hair-splitty... Read more
In September, I brought my textbooks, my computer and a brand-new box of crayons to my first day of class at Northern Seminary. Since it had been thirty-five years since I was last in a classroom, I figured I’d better come prepared for any eventuality. When I showed my crayons to a couple of classmates during a break, one of them broke out the neon pink and blue Doc McStuffins folder he’d brought along to hold his course syllabus. It... Read more
I’ve been blogging since 2006. I had no grand plan or Big Message when I signed up for my first Blogger account. I simply needed a place to deposit some of my excess words. I’ve blogged pretty consistently since then, through some serious family crises, the birth of one of our beloved grandsons, two moves, rotator cuff surgery, the death of my mom and another significant friend, a few jobs, a couple of churches, six trips to Israel, and four... Read more
Click here to read part one of this story I’m sharing as a response to the recent Strange Fire conference. Click here for part two. No Swimming Allowed (conclusion) Dave was a left-brained guy, and decided to wait and see what the fruit of his encounter with God was before he talked about it with Christy. She’d always seemed content to stay on the shore and read about swimming, rather than diving in. A litmus test for his new level of... Read more
Pilgrim's Road Trip
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