We started our Advent calendars on Sunday. Penny read the opening poem from our devotion/sticker Advent book:

There is a star in Bethlehem, bright shining as the sun,Announcing that the Light of God shines here for everyone.Let's look upon the star this year, as God wants us ...

I appreciated Bob Fu's story, as recounted in God's Double Agent: The True Story of a Chinese Christian's Fight for Freedom, for a number of reasons, including the glimpse at recent Chinese history and the story of an unlikely conversion to Christianity. But I was most struck ...

Every year, Peter and I pull out our very favorite Advent book: God With Us: Rediscovering the Meaning of Christmas. (Here's what I wrote last year, when I recommended it.) If you'd like the opportunity to prepare your heart to celebrate the incarnation, this book ...

Somewhat spontaneously, we decided to go through Penny's memory box tonight. She spied it upon her dresser and brought it to the sofa in their room. She and Wiliam both decided that viewing its contents trumped reading the final chapter of Prince Caspian. So we leafed through ...

I mentioned a few weeks back that I had the opportunity to contribute an essay about male and female roles within marriage for the new book Talking Taboo: American Christian Women Get Frank About Faith (see my post Should Men Be the Head of the Household? for the beginning of ...

"What's one word or verse I can pray for you?"

Those were the words from a friend I received earlier this week.

One word, or one verse, that sums up my needs before God right now. In this season. This season in which God is beginning to feel quite near quite often, for the first ...

Last week, Kari Wagner-Peck wrote, in an open letter to Chuck Klosterman, the New York Times' ethicist:

Today people with cognitive disabilities and their allies are asking members of society to refrain from using the word "retarded" (along with all mutations of the word) for ...