The Story of Ian and Larissa

A Sermon on Jesus and Nonviolence

Here is an excellent sermon from my good friend, Matthew Dowling, on Jesus and nonviolence based upon Matt. 5:38-48. Matthew is a former Marine who is now working on his MDiv at Oklahoma Christian University. He is a great student of the word who offers some wonderful insights into the text. Nonviolence is a controversial [...]

How the Culture Wars Might be Destroying Your Church

The culture wars have been ongoing for some time now, but they always get more heated in an election year. This year is no different. It is still early on in the election process, but already my Facebook and Twitter feed has been filled with pleas to save our country from perpetual doom. Although I [...]

The Trials We Face

One of the hardest things to do as a parent is to step back, and watch your child struggle with something you could help them do so easily. Recently, my wife and I have been teaching our son, Jackson, to dress and undress himself. It’s hard to watch him struggle with a shirt or his [...]

Some Tips For Christians Who Use Social Networks

Just this week it was announced that Facebook reached 900 million users. In case you were wondering that is one-seventh of the entire population of earth. That’s a lot of people! Not only is social networking becoming more and more popular, but some recent research also suggests it is highly addictive. According to researchers at [...]

Some Thoughts on Public Schools

More and more you are hearing about Christians choosing to homeschool their children, rather than send them to public school. This is an important decision, after all we want to do the best thing for our children. Let me first state that the Bible does not condemn or praise public school or home school. The [...]

“A Sefless Act”

Dorwan Stoddard, a member of the Mountain Avenue Church of Christ, died saving his wife from the gunfire of a madman.  Our president described Dorwan’s actions as “a selfless act.”  This week many of us turned on the television to learn about the tragedy of Tuscon and the heroics of men like Dorwan.  Many of [...]

Is Marriage Becoming Obsolete?

According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center 4 out of every 10 Americans believe that marriage is becoming obsolete.  More and more children under the age of 18 are living in a household with parents who have been divorced, separated, or never married.  This year marriage hit an all time low of [...]

Restoring Community

We were created in the image of God to live in community just as God does (Father, Son, Holy Spirit).  We are born with a yearning for community and we keep this with us for a little while, but for many the yearning fades.  This happens for several reasons.  The world tells us we can [...]

The Best of Times or The Worst of Times

When posed with those two choices I’m afraid many would choose the worst of times.  That may be a reasonable choice if you are not a Christian, although I’m not sure it would hold up when we compare our time to other times in history, nevertheless the argument could be made.  If one is a [...]