I was flying to Canada one autumn to speak at a college. I was on a British carrier that had a lot of Europeans on board. The computer that selected my seat had placed me next to a husband and wife in their mid-fifties. They were a Jewish couple from England who had been vacationing […]

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Five, four, three, two, one, Happy New Year!  Strains of “Auld Lang Syne” came over the loud speakers as the ball at Time Square finally reached the bottom of its drop.  At that precise moment, millions of people, taking their cue from Dick Clark, started to dance and make noise all over the land. But […]

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New Years Eve.  1983. Central Tennessee.  It had been a silent night.  It was a quiet dawn.  Morning’s first rays slipped across the living room floor and climbed up the Christmas tree.  Prisms flashed from crystal ornaments and bathed the room in rainbows.  The Madonna stared down at her baby in the nativity scene hanging […]

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If you were asked to throw out words to describe your feelings about Christmas, “broken plans” and “paradoxes” probably wouldn’t make your list. But they’d be at the top of it if you were Mary and Joseph. In the countdown to your wedding, your supposedly “virgin” fiancé tells you she’s pregnant and has the gall […]

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Q: This grace-based, grace-filled relationships concept sounds good and well if you are gentle-tempered (like you, Tim), but how do you have a good argument in the grace-based model if you are prone to discuss your point or position in a fairly loud manner i.e. yelling and raising your voice? A: There is nothing in […]

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For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and […]

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The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. Isaiah 9:2   December serves as the sunset month of another year; the dusk before the dawn of a fresh calendar. It’s always been ironic to me that our sovereign […]

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Darcy and I spent the last week in Poland speaking at the European Leadership Forum (aka ELF). ELF is the lovechild of some Oxford and Cambridge University brainiacs who wanted to create an outlet for Europe’s leading Christian voices, thinkers, and people of influence to get advanced training. ELF offers twenty-four Networks in a vast […]

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“It’s been more than four decades since my wife, Darcy, and I recited the classic wedding vows. Since that time, we’ve often found ourselves as part of an audience listening to some other couple repeating those same words. It’s amazing how differently those words hit us now than they did back then. Decades of marital […]

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There’s so much parenting advice out there! With myriad voices claiming that their method is best, how do parents sift through all of the advice to find the truth? Following is a question that was emailed to us and our response. We think it might be helpful to both parents and pastors as they try […]

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