C. S. Lewis on How Pain Transforms Us

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains ...

Importance of Church in Spiritual Formation

Spiritual formation is so often couched in more individualistic terms, that it's easy to forget the important role the church community plays in our ...

Embracing Uncertainty

In his book In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, Mark Batterson talks about the joy that comes through unexpected things—a lesson he learned while ...

Retired Couple Ministers Throughout Africa

Mike and Marie Meaney of Bellevue, Washington, have a unique ministry in their retirement years.

After completing 40 years in their respective careers ...

John Ortberg on Thriving

FTT—my wife first introduced me to those initials. Nancy was a nurse when I first met her. There were many parts of nursing for which she did not ...

The Merton Prayer

In his book Thoughts in Solitude, Thomas Merton wrote fifteen lines that have become known as "the Merton Prayer":

My Lord God, I have no idea ...

The Necessity of Hope

What oxygen is to the lungs, such is hope to the meaning of life.

—Emil Brunner, Swiss theologian (1889–1966)

Church Is Like a Duck-billed Platypus

Philip Yancey writes:

Without a doubt, my all-time favorite animal is the duck-billed platypus. It appeals to my nonconformist instincts because it breaks ...

Bonhoeffer on Church Community

Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.

— Dietrich ...

Banding Together in Spiritual Warfare

Awlwyn Balnave lives in Calgary, Canada, and shared the following story:

A few years ago, an old acquaintance of mine served as a police officer in a northern ...