Inspiration Faith & Prayer Health & Wellness Entertainment Love & Family
Newsletters Special Offers

Thin Places

New post on the Park Forum: Desegregating the Sunday School Hour

We traveled as a family to New Orleans over the holidays. For the first time, Penny asked us, “Where’s Grand Penny?” She knows that Grand Penny, her namesake, her grandmother, is from New Orleans. So why didn’t we see her when we were there? We tried to explain. “Grand Penny got really sick, and her…

Ten years ago, my dad called to talk to my husband. “I hear you’re working too hard,” Dad said. “I don’t have a choice,” Peter replied. “You always have a choice,” Dad said. And a few months later, Peter chose to leave his job as an analyst in an investment bank and work for a…

For those of you who live in the tri-state area, I wanted to let you know I will be preaching at 8:00 and 10:00 am this Sunday at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in New Providence, NJ. I will also be speaking and reading from Penelope Ayers at the Adult Forum at 11:15 that same morning.…

Christmas Eve, 11 pm. It was the first time since we’ve had children that my husband and I attended “midnight mass,” and I had forgotten how long it took. At home, we attend a non-denominational church, but we had decided to go for the “smells and bells” of the Episcopal liturgy that night. It was…

Happy New Year! My celebrations started early when I read that Andy Crouch (author of Culture Makers, a book I highly recommend), had reviewed my book, Penelope Ayers, as one of his favorites of the year. Click here to read the review (scroll down once you get to the page), and I encourage you to…

When God raised Jesus from the dead, God proved that everything Jesus had claimed about himself was true. He wasn’t just a remarkable and inspirational teacher who died an unfortunate death. He wasn’t just a man who offered forgiveness from sin. Rather, the resurrection demonstrates that Jesus was who he said he was. He was…

Jesus died a criminal’s death. He was executed in the most brutal method the Romans had at their disposal, crucifixion. And his closest friends were very afraid that their death was next. Other than John, the men who had been in his close band of disciples didn’t even witness his execution. The women were there—Mary,…

I have written a lot about the benefits of Christianity, but if Christianity is just about satisfying my emotional needs, well, how do I know that it’s true? Maybe it’s just a powerful story that makes me feel good, much like the comfort of watching a movie where it all turns out right in the…

(Note to readers: the posts that will go up this week come from a series of talks I gave last month. If you’d like to read the earlier talks, go back to November and look at posts named Life With God, Life Without God, and then in December, Life with God.) As regular readers of…
archives most recent
search this blog
More from Beliefnet and our partners