No other book besides the Bible has been published in English more than John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress. My summer reading often includes the story of Christian’s journey from his hometown, The City of Destruction, to the place he longs for, The Celestial City. Bunyan is a master storyteller and easily aids the reader to identify with Christian’s woes along his travels. Much like the Christian life we live, only a handful of Christian’s days are without trouble from every direction. …
You cannot get away from it. From major retailers to your search engine, Fortune 500 companies to the local coffee shop, everywhere you turn in the month of June the LGBTQ+ agenda meets you head on.
June has been claimed as Pride Month where worldwide expressions of what God calls wicked is celebrated in Pride Parades. New York City hosted the first Pride Parade June 28, 1970. In 2021 the Pride Parade in Madrid, Spain, drew 2,000,000 attendees. The largest Pride Parade is in San Paulo, Brazil, where 3,500,000 take part. …
“Her mother and I,” with those words lives changed until death parts them.
I have presided over dozens of marriage ceremonies and have given a gracious smile to the father answering back those words to me. I know what it feels like to say those words and walk away from my daughter. After last Saturday, I won’t say those words again.
Emily’s marriage to Fernando marks the third wedding ceremony where I have been both dad and pastor. When our older son, Michael, married nearly six years ago, I preached the marriage sermon in a similar way as I did…
Last weekend saw numerous deaths caused by criminals carrying firearms.
Nicholas Enger was a 17-year-old high school kid from Cambridge, MN, a small town 45 miles north of Minneapolis. He died early Sunday morning in Minneapolis. He was doing what other teen boys sometimes do, watching stupid people doing stupid things. The stupid things this night was, according to police, people “driving recklessly and spinning around in their cars.”
Nicholas stopped to watch when a driver of another vehicle got mad at a driver in a third vehicle and bullets started flying. One hit Nicholas. Upon hearing the news of…
Along the banks of the Minnesota River, in the shadow of the Mall of America, and adjacent to runway 30L of the Minneapolis St Paul International airport lay more than 208,000 of America’s soldiers, sailors, airmen, and their spouses or dependents.
In beautiful symmetry, white washed markers identify the gravesites in Fort Snelling National Cemetery, one of 131 national cemeteries in the United States that serve as the final resting place for some of America’s finest.
Among the nine Medal of Honor recipients buried at Fort Snelling is Captain Arlo Olson, born in Greenville, Iowa, and died at the age…
The current cancel culture reaches far and wide. The rationale for tearing down or defacing monuments to Abraham Lincoln confuses me as do the frontal attacks against J.K. Rowling and Caitlyn Jenner (formerly Bruce) who have opinions many have labeled trans phobic — head scratching when you remember who Rowling and Jenner are.
Cancel culture, according to Wikipedia, “is a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles — whether it be online, on social media, or in person.” Miriam-Webster adds cancel culture is “the practice or tendency of engaging in mass canceling…
Both my grandmother and my mom were prayer warriors. I doubt if anyone brought my name before the Lord more than the two of them. Many of you could say the same thing about the women close to you. Praying moms have pleaded with God for the souls, safety, supply, and security of their children since before the time of Hannah of old (1 Samuel 1–2).
In days following Mother’s Day, what better way could you honor your mom than by following her example and praying for her?
1. “God, help her not to grow weary in doing well.” She’s…
Last week was fun in the exceedingly small world of Lunchtime Musing. Not everyone agreed and some disagreed vehemently with my assertion that it neither honors God nor women to task females with the responsibility of subduing violent men. I don’t have a problem with disagreement. What I have a problem with is dismissal.
I am just a middle-aged man at a keyboard pastoring a small congregation in middle-America, so it matters nothing if people dismiss me, but when people dismiss God, that is concerning. When Christians dismiss God, this is of greatest concern. …
We saw it happen. We wish we hadn’t. Daunte Wright died Sunday, April 11, 2021 from a single gunshot wound fired by Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, police officer Kim Potter.
Daunte Wright should not have died that day. And Kim Potter should not have been at the scene because Kim Potter is a female, and no woman should be the arresting officer of any man nor involved in the apprehension of any man. God did not create women to subdue violent men.
We all know Wright was stopped for a traffic violation. Soon the officers discovered Wright was wanted on outstanding…
For many of us we learned the words early in our elementary education as we recited with our classmates the American Pledge of Allegiance, but we did not need the text of our vow to introduce us to the idea of justice. From youngest days we demanded equity and impartiality often housed in the phrase, “That’s not fair.”
Those three little words were our initial plea for justice or at least justice as we perceived it.
In the Twin Cities of my state of Minnesota and in my hometown of Chicago as well as across our great nation, there is…
