Once a month, a group of dedicated professionals ventures into their community to serve those less fortunate than themselves. They're not carrying hammers and nails to build a house, or ladles and pots to work in a soup kitchen. Rather, they're armed with blow-dryers, scissors, and nail polish. Oh yes,…

I read one preacher tell the following story that reminded me of these ideas of citizenship and where our loyalty ultimately lies. Here’s what he says: On the way to work this morning, I pulled up to a stop light and noticed an interesting SUV in front of me. The owner of the SUV is clearly a person…

Monsters, Inc. is a movie about a monster world that is fueled by fear, literally. The company motto is "We scare because we care." Each day, Mike, Sully, and the other monsters line up on the shop floor as a machine carries dozens of closet doors to individual scaring stations. A scream collection canister…

| In my experience, signs follow decisions. The way you overcome spiritual inertia and produce spiritual momentum is by making tough decisions. And the tougher the decision, the more potential momentum it will produce. The primary reason most of us don't see God moving is simply because we aren't moving.…

A churchgoer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So I think I'm…

It is so easy to become a victim of our circumstances, and develop a victim mentality. Forgotten promises, lies, and schemes do their best to convince us that life is not filled with happy endings. When he was young, Skeeter Bronson found that hard to accept. His father, who owned a Southern California…

The movie I Am Sam is about Sam Dawson (played by Sean Penn), who has the IQ of a 7-year-old and yet is a caring single father to his 6-year-old daughter, Lucy. To provide for their physical needs, Sam works at a local Starbucks as a busboy. But when Lucy turns seven, authorities take her from Sam because…

On April 26, 2008, the Western Oregon women's softball team played against Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington. During the course of the game, Western Oregon senior Sara Tucholsky hit the first homerun of her college career. She dropped her bat and started to make her way around the…

UP A CREEK…WITH A PADDLE-WHEELER! “Attempt something so impossible, it’s bound to fail unless God be in it.” Then tell the story. Enter this story at your own risk, a life-changing risk. June, 1908, missionaries Royal Dye, MD and his wife Eva captivated Oregon with tales of adventure in the Congo-heart…

God Sightings Have you heard anyone talk about their grandchildren lately? If you will listen, most grandparents are more than happy to tell you how little Johnny took his first step, is learning to drive or about to go to college. To hear the proud grandparent tell the story, you'd think they were the…

A former missionary to the Asian country of Laos tells of a rather unique way the kings of Vietnam and Laos used to divide the people that lived near the border they shared. This was before there were strict national boundaries. For purposes of taxation, it was important to know who belonged where. So,…