Photo by Jason Tuinstra on Unsplash

When the Christ said that the church of Christ is the “light of the world” and the “salt of the Earth,” I take it to mean that we are the gentle, kind, loving conscience of humanity.

For example, when humanity gobbles up consumerism at all costs, we show and tell a better way with grace and humility. When humanity takes it for granted that he is most blessed who can buy as much as he wants, the church of Christ quietly acts on the belief that “it is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts of the Apostles 20:35).

The biblical pattern is that the church of Christ is the best “light” and “salt” when it is in the minority, when it is not in power.

We need to remember that the “light” of which the Christ spoke was a flicker in vast darkness. “Salt” is just a particle on whatever food it preserves.

Over the years–at least the years in my...

Photo by Rumman Amin on Unsplash

Marketing works best when it gets us to think about what we lack.

Marketing gets us to think about what we lack now and quickly imagine how a good or service will make our wishes come true later. Giving thanks becomes more like wishful thinking about the future. “Thanks in advance.”

Marketing may be the maker of the default setting in the American mind.

When we are very young–so young that we may not even know our ABC’S–we learn how to learn what we do not have. We learn how to imagine a future when we get what we do not have here and now.

This is how I gave thanks when I was young.

I thanked God for a big, long future in which I expected to get everything that I dreamed would make me happy and whole.

The problem now is that I am no longer young.

How do I give thanks now when the future is getting smaller and smaller?

Some of the people I...

Photo by sheri silver on Unsplash

If I make a big bad choice after lunch, I can often link it to a small not-so-bad choice I made around breakfast.

For example, let’s say I say something snippy to my wife as we’re getting ready for the day. I feel bad about it, which often means I feel bad about myself. The temptation comes over me to think of the day itself as bad or to think of myself as a bad person.

Once I start thinking about the day or my self as bad, I will find it hard to not act on those thoughts for the rest of the day.

So, for example, I may choose to go through the McDonald’s drive-thru at lunch instead of eating the healthy leftovers at home. And why not? The day is bad. I am bad. Bad people make bad choices on bad days. Why should anyone expect anything else?

This is what counselors and therapists call “all-or-nothing thinking.”

The day is either all bad or all...

Roger Shriver was an “old man” as long as I knew him.

The truth is, he was about 58 years old when I first met him. Since I was in kindergarten at that time, he looked very old to me.

But Roger would challenge any one of us youngsters to a footrace in the church parking lot. He would blow our young minds by winning every time.

What is special about that last sentence is not that a seemingly “old man” could outrace boys in their prime.

What is special is that Roger challenged us in the first place.

I didn’t know what to do with him when I was a kid. Every time I was at church, this “old man” tracked me down to ask me questions about myself and impart wisdom.

I mean he tracked me down. We didn’t just cross paths in the church lobby. I think Roger came to church with an agenda to speak to every kid in the place. Whatever made him want to talk to us kids got stronger the more we...

Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash

One of the highest highs of my life is preaching and teaching in small churches in small towns one or two weekends a month.

The pandemic ended that for almost two years.

Last weekend, I was happy and thankful to stand in a pulpit again.

The congregation that hosted me is one I didn’t know until I showed up to preach. I learned that the congregation had about 70 members before the pandemic. Now it has about 35.

The people held their chins up, but I could feel grief hanging in the air.

They could see ghosts in those empty pews.

In congregations like that one, I often get the feeling that those who are still there don’t know how to make sense of what is happening.

They believe in God. They believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

If the “Good News” is so good and powerful and true, why aren’t people beating down the church doors?

Empty...

Photo by Sangga Rima Roman Selia on Unsplash

About a year ago, my city’s council and mayor put me on the zoning board of appeals.

What does a zoning board of appeals do?

Let’s say that you want to put up a new sign on your building, but the sign you want to put up is bigger than the city ordinance allows.

The zoning board of appeals–five of your fellow citizens and neighbors–will hear your case and either rule in your favor or hold you to the ordinance.

City ordinances may cause drowsiness, but I find each case that comes before us to be thrilling.

Business or property owners come before us and make their best arguments for why the city ordinance is not fair or should not apply in their case. Most of the time, they make strong cases and we rule in their favor.

Sometimes, they just don’t want to be bothered by the city ordinance.

In those cases, we rule against them.

Some...

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

I have three cousins.

Just three.

My wife, Tracy, has so many cousins she has a hard time counting them all or recalling their names.

She feels sorry for me when she remembers that I have only three.

Not only do I suffer a severe lack of cousins (as Tracy sees it), but my cousins and I never lived in the same state.

Since I grew up in Ohio and my extended family was in Tennessee, I saw aunts, uncles, and cousins about once a year (at most).

Tracy, however, tells stories about her childhood among her aunts, uncles, and cousins. When she was growing up, most of them lived in her neighborhood. They popped in to visit almost every day.

I love that Tracy’s family lived close by and that she grew up feeling close to them. But I don’t feel like I missed out on that, even though I rarely saw my family because they lived so far away.

That is...

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Matthew 5:11-12).

April slapped me.

She was the only person in sixth grade who still tried to be friends with me. That ended the instant her palm met my face.

Sixth grade was a bad year.

I used to call it the “year of persecution.”

Halfway through the school year, my teacher, Mr. Crosby, started a science unit on the theory of evolution.

My church and my parents raised me to be a creationist. That is, we believed that the Book of Genesis Chapter 1 is fact: God spoke the universe into existence in six days.

Until sixth grade, I didn’t know that anyone believed...

I am not even one-tenth of the husband I hope to become for my wife.

That I know after 13 years of marriage (today!–October 3, 2021).

The thing about marriage is, we have to get into it with its last day in mind.

Marriage is made for making faith, hope, and love over a lifetime together.

When I married Tracy, I knew that it would take decades (if I’m lucky) to grow into the man who knows how to love her just right.

But on the day that I become almost ten tenths of the husband I hope to be for her, we will be very old (if we’re lucky) and we may be sick and weak and going through one of the worst times of our lives. When that time comes, I’ll give her all that I’ve got left in the tank. It may not be much, but it will be all she needs then and there.

Then, all the decades of building trust and learning each other will add up to one moment on Earth when our marriage meets its...

“What do you want to do with your one and only life?”

Jim stared at me from across his desk.

I knew what he wanted me to say: “Marketing.”

But I could not say it because I would not mean it.

“Look Brad,” he said. “This is the chance of a lifetime. Will you really let it go to waste?”

I walked out of Jim’s corner office and went back to my cube. I slumped in the chair and stared out the window.

What did I want to do with my one and only life?

A year ago, I would have given Jim the answer he wanted me to give. I would have jumped on the chance to fill a job that the company’s chief marketing officer made just for me.

But now something seemed off.

I was older. Wiser. I was 24 years old now.

A year earlier, I was a fresh face at the Fortune 500 information technology company that hired me two months before I graduated from college. I was sure the salary on my offer letter was...