The most important vote you cast is not a vote you cast around Election Day; it is the vote you cast every day as you go about your life as a citizen.

The two questions that should mean the most to each one of us are:

1. How am I presiding for my own life?

2. How am I presiding for my family, friends, and neighbors?

How am I doing as a president?

Am I worthy of a vote of affirmation and confidence from the people and places in my own life?

I think presidential politics often becomes a distraction and an excuse.

We can let presidential politics distract us from the work we need to be doing for ourselves and for the people and places in our lives. It is so easy to be put off doing what we need to do while we put on a show about how a person in Washington, D.C., is not doing what he should be doing.

Frankly, politics may be one area where Christians feel like they can ignore their...

A long time ago, I broke my wrist playing pickup basketball. I had to wear a cast on my right hand for two months.

The day after I got out of that cast, I went to the gym to play basketball again and…broke two metacarpal bones in the same right hand.

I went back in a cast for another three months.

When I finally got out of that cast, my right hand was not only weak; it was not the same hand. The two bones I broke were the long, straight bones that connect the knuckles and the wrist. I broke them so bad that the doctor said he would have to open my hand, cut through muscle and tendon, break the bones some more, then set them and pin them back together. He warned that scar tissue from surgery could take away the full range of motion in two of my fingers. As a drummer, I didn’t like the sound of that.

The doctor gave me another option: Let the bones set as they were. I would have a...

Christians know the first few lines of the Gospel of John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us… (Gospel of John 1:1-3, 14).

Our English “Word” comes from the ancient Greek Logos.

That ancient Greek is a key that unlocks a treasure for us.

The world in which the Gospel of John made its first rounds was a Greek-thinking world. The Greek mindset was the common mindset.

That mindset held that words are not marks on paper or sounds that come from the voice.

Rather, words are alive. As if every word that proceeds from the mouth is living and active in the world. As if every word is a baby born to grow and make its dwelling among humankind.

Imagine a fable in which the main...

“Love your enemies.”

I believe this one teaching of Jesus Christ is the essence of Christianity.

It is a hard teaching.

It is a lot harder because of who Christians choose to follow these days.

Some of the most popular people among Christians in America are people who call for the isolation, punishment, and shaming of enemies.

So, I have been using my voice to call Christians back to the teaching of their one and only Lord and Savior. We must love our enemies or we are not in the Way of Jesus Christ. It is as simple as that.

And, once again, loving our enemies means proactive love. It is not waiting until our enemies make a civil gesture. It is not waiting until we happen to pass an enemy trying to change a tire on the side of the highway.

Proactive love is seeking out our enemies to serve them.

Who does that?

People who follow the Way of Jesus Christ.

How?

Good...

A few days go, I started feeling achy and tired. My head drifted into a fog. My doctor sent me to get a COVID test on October 2. I await the results.

Whether the tests come back negative or positive, I feel like the fatigue and heaviness I feel are not biological; they are spiritual.

I feel under the weather in my spirit.

I note that the more I expose myself to the news and social media, the more my spirit feels feverish and weak.

It is as if I am absorbing all of the anger and fear that I see in the world.

What about you? Do you feel it, too?

What is the antidote?

I can tell you what will not neutralize the poison.

Taking in more news and more social media will not make things better. If you keep searching for hope in those places, you will not find it.

Voting for one candidate or another will neither comfort nor heal you.

Beating whoever you count as your opponent will...

The thing that distresses me most about these times is the naked contempt, hatred, and ill will that some Christians display for their enemies.

This will do more to darken the witness of the Gospel and destroy the church of Christ than any “liberal agenda.”

As a Christian, it makes me sick in my soul to see how the darkness of contempt and hate is overshadowing the Gospel.

Jesus Christ said that his people are the ones who “bless those who curse” them, “pray for those who persecute” them, and “turn the other cheek” to those who strike them (Gospel of Matthew 5:38 - 48).

If this is what a Christian does, how is that so many Christians in America are publicly cursing, persecuting, and striking their enemies?

What happened?

How did we get this way?

We stopped believing in the power and promises of God and started listening to the politicians who promised us power.

The “Sermon...

What does it mean to “pray for the President”?

The first time I recall praying for the President was around August 1990. That month, the United States led an international coalition into a war to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. I recall that on the day the news announced that U.S. forces were engaging in combat, our church held a special prayer service. I listened to our elders pray for God to guide and protect President George Bush as he led our country to war.

Over the last 30 years, I can recall periods when the Christians in my life devoted a lot of prayer to the President. I can also recall stretches of time when the Christians in my life barely mentioned the President at all.

My observation is that the Christians in my life tended to pray for the President when they liked him, but not when they disliked him.

So, again, what does it mean to “pray for the...

It is human nature to always be closing or opening.

I know a woman who, over the years, so closed her mind that she ended up closing out her own family. She passed her last years full of herself, but alone. The only light in her life was the dim light of the TV. Death closed in.

I know a church that once had hundreds of members. The most common sound, besides praise, prayer, and preaching, was the sound of children. But as old age closed in on the church leaders, they closed off every chance for the younger members to try new things. Now, less than 20 bitter people huddle in the chilly church building where 300 used to raise the roof in praise. Death is closing in.

I know a nation that was once open to all challenges and all comers. It was open to a great and growing plurality of all kinds of people. It was so open to new ideas that people called it “the American experiment.” Now...

…run for office.

You owe it to your community, your country, and yourself.

I’m talking to you. Yes, you.

And I really mean it: You get yourself into a public office.

Go ahead and keep posting on social media. Go ahead and be a critic of the people in office now.

But, earn your credibility and your integrity by doing the job yourself.

It’s so easy to get into public office. It really, really is!

Do you belong to a house of worship? Volunteer to head up a committee.

Do you have a child in school? Run for school board or volunteer for one of the offices nobody wants on the PTA (secretary or treasurer).

Does your neighborhood have an association or block club? Put yourself out there as someone who is willing to organize, promote, and recruit its activities.

Do you live in a city, town, or village? Apply to serve on one of its many community boards (like the holiday parade...

Get a random group of Americans together around some good food and a couple of hours with nothing else to do. Get them talking about themselves and telling stories about their lives.

And in that place where food and lives are shared, the “hot buttons” aren’t so hot anymore.

Ask them something like: Do you think it’s good that people from other countries want to move to the United States and settle here? I bet most people around that table would not only say “yes,” but would tell you that a close family member or friend is an immigrant.

What if we then took the next step and asked that group of Americans to imagine that their little dinner party was now in charge of designing the country’s immigration system. Ask them to imagine that they are starting from Square One and making over the immigration system from the ground up. What would that immigration system look like? How would it...