Why Teach?

This extended quotation is from Dr. Howard Hendricks in his book Teaching to Change Lives. Years ago I took part in a Sunday school convention at Moody Memorial Church in Chicago. During a lunch break, three of us who were teaching at the convention walked across the street to a little hamburger shop. The place was filled, but soon a table for four opened up. We saw an elderly lady whom we knew was attending the...

THE JESUS STORYBOOK BIBLE

I’m an English major and I’ve recently been studying the benefits of reading the Bible as literature. That sounds strange, doesn’t it? But we don’t always think of the Bible as literature. We forget this human element of the sacred. We’ve become so accustomed to reading the Bible in bits and pieces that we forget that it really is One Story. A Bible teacher once commented, “You...

Walter Brueggemann on Friday

Have you read Walter Brueggemann? I’ve just been introduced, but what I’ve read so far is very challenging. I’m reading from a collection of prayers from the book Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggeman, edited by Edwin Searcy . This piece opens with the traditional refrain, “Thank God It’s Friday!” and continues with a list of reasons we do so: we are ready...

PRIMAL by Mark Batterson

PRIMAL: A Quest for the Lost Soul of Christianity I should have posted this review in December. I may lose my completely self-assigned blogger credentials for not posting this review when it was due. And I do feel badly about it because Random House people sent me this brand new book and I was too busy taking finals and, well, trying to have Christmas, to get it finished in time. But now here it is, and I think...

Ada’s Story

Ada is our beautiful, too-smart, almost six year-old. Dan brought home some of her recent stories after parent/teacher conferences this week. This one is our favorite. I’ll let you try to decode and then give you the translation. The stars swam quietly The stars got scared because I made my bad-est face I apologized and they took me up into the...