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There are days, and sometimes weeks, when disappointing circumstances can seem overwhelming. You feel like you're barely keeping your emotional head above the water, and then you see a giant wave approaching.

I know that winter is hard. I know it’s long in Chicago, and there isn’t much for us to do outside when it’s cold here. I also know that seasonal depression is a real thing.

My friend Billie, director of Africans Reaching Africa, painted this picture for me: “Imagine you lived in the South at the end of the Civil War, and you were told that your Confederate currency was about to be invalidated, but you could exchange it for U.S. legal tender if you did right away, before it was canceled.”

I was struck at the bank when I noticed the vault was open and unattended, yet I was filling out a deposit slip with a pen that was chained to the counter. Doesn’t that seem ironic to you?

Timanthes was an aspiring Greek artist in the 4th century BC. While studying under a tutor, he was nearing completion of a major painting. Upon arriving in the morning, he found the canvas blotted out with paint. Enraged, he confronted his teacher, who acknowledged destroying his artwork. He said, “You were spending so much time admiring what you had done that you were no longer improving. This was a great painting for some, but not for you. You can do much better.”

What a terrible tragedy! Maybe by the time you are reading this, more information has come out, but I’m baffled by how this airliner/helicopter collision could have happened.

I was twenty years old, and on my way home from work. I had gotten up before dawn that day to fix my car so it could get me to work, so I was unusually tired. I kept nodding off but was sure I could keep myself awake. Bad decision.

I grew up being bored at church. When I later became serious about my faith and began training for ministry, I vowed to never let that happen in a place where I have something to do with it. Too many people stay away from church because too many churches are not worth going to.

Five active wildfires have ravished LA County. 10,000 homes and businesses have gone up in flames, causing billions in damage. 10 lives have been lost and 180,000 left homeless.

I’ve written a couple of summer blogs encouraging readers to get outside and enjoy the warm weather. But I’d like to encourage you to do the same thing in the cold.

There are days, and sometimes weeks, when disappointing circumstances can seem overwhelming. You feel like you're barely keeping your emotional head above the water, and then you see a giant wave approaching. For some reason, hard times come in blasts, not trickles. A broken relationship, trouble at work, health issues, money problems…They seem to come at us all at once. You don’t know what is harder: disappointment, fear, shame, or rejection.

“I wish the preaching in our church was deeper.” Yes, I’ve heard that. Maybe you’ve said it. By “deep preaching,” we typically mean…scholarly teaching, in-depth word studies, and theological paradigms. The trouble is…that’s not how Jesus taught. It’s not how His disciples taught. It’s not how the early church leaders taught. While the New Testament expounded on many Old Testament Scriptures, see if you can find a single Hebrew word study that helps Greek readers know the ful

Passing our faith on to the next generation is a big deal to us at The Bridge. We never say, “Kids are the future church.” Kids ARE the church, every bit as much as you and me! So why do we encourage parents to put their kids in Bridge Kids and not bring them into the service?

So you’re not a winter person. You endure the cold and the snow, but it’s not something you love. I’m not a fan either.

I know that winter is hard. I know it’s long in Chicago, and there isn’t much for us to do outside when it’s cold here. I also know that seasonal depression is a real thing.

A fifty-one-year-old widow in Oklahoma City was diagnosed with a terminal illness and was told that she had just a year to live. She had saved up money during her life and decided that over her last year, she would spend as much as possible, to find a year of happiness.

Is our God interactive? Can we encounter his presence in such a way that we sense his prompting and hear his voice with spiritual ears? Or is he just way up there and us down here?

Wow. What a week. Most of you are aware that Junior and I recently returned from an inquiry trip to Africa to check out a ministry that our church supports: Africans Reaching Africa.

I am told that standing at the South Pole is like being in the eye of a hurricane––deceivingly calm. The quietness seems inconsistent with the fact that most of the earth’s wind originate from there.

The late Ray Stedman told the story of a Jewish friend named Arthur Katz. Early in life he became a committed Marxist.