The television ad begins with Julia and Sam Thorn sitting on a couch.  Sam states that he and his wife have been married forty-six years.  They have raised three children who are grown and out … Read More

On September 21 Santa Barbara Community Church will begin her thirtieth year of ministry in our community.  To paraphrase the Grateful Dead, What a long, great trip it’s been.  We began in a living room … Read More

When the years and decades slip away we sometimes find that one era’s red-hot disciple has become another era’s backslidden, lukewarm, un-Christian-couch-potato. Today’s hand-rasin’, Bible-quotin’ prayer-warrior sometimes morphs into tomorrow’s languid, listless lover of Sunday … Read More

It was Bob Dylan who sang . . . You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.  If he wrote the song today the line might be, You don’t need to … Read More

If sunscreen filters out the sun’s harmful rays, meditation upon the Scriptures ought to filter out our proclivity to misuse words.  The book of Proverbs, in a sense, amplifies what we hear from Jesus in … Read More

Tepid, halfhearted, indifferent, unenthusiastic, apathetic, moderate, lackadaisical…  How would you like it if Jesus used these adjectives to describe Santa Barbara Community Church?  Perhaps he will one day, and that’s because successful churches have a … Read More

Naked and ashamed—that’s what they were.  Eve bit into the proverbial apple, and Adam followed suit.  Their eyes were opened, and the view was not entirely pleasant.  In a pinch, they used fig leaves, not … Read More

Did you hear it?  A very loud silence thundered across America last week.  On January 22nd we observed the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that essentially abolished abortion law in … Read More

Pessimism sells.  Something in us likes to hear about how bad things are and how much worse they will become.  We are attracted to the notion that the apocalypse is just around the corner.  Books … Read More

Hudson Taylor again. Last month in these pages we looked at this missionary’s secret for dealing with his own pain and suffering.  This month let’s consider why he accomplished so much for God and God’s … Read More