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I was sitting in my room at around 6:30 this morning reviewing Spanish vocabulary when everything started to shake. The windows rattled, a picture toppled, and I heard a few shrieks outside above the low rumbling sound of the earth shifting. I had never experienced an earthquake before so I was startled. For Guatemala, it was a mild quake (registered 5.0) and not a big deal. It’s an almost weekly occurrence here. But for me, it made me feel insecure. Guatemala is one of the m

So the sabbatical has begun. I’ve started the summer off with a language immersion in Antigua, Guatemala. My daughter Erica is with me.Erica took Spanish in high school and though she has not used it since, an immersion like this brings it back. She’s doing remarkably well, conversing with our host family (they don’t speak English) and people all around town. I stand there and smile, occasionally nodding my head when she does so it's not obvious that I don’t have a clue. I do

The turmoil over Bowe Bergdahl and all that it entails has captured the news in recent days. At first, most of us were happy to hear of his apparent release. Then there came controversy about the negotiations and release of high level Taliban leaders in exchange. But the whole ordeal has exploded since other questions of Bowe’s apparent desertion and even the possibility that he deserted his company in order to aid their enemy.A lot of uncertainty remains regarding the circum

Maybe you are like me and you’d rather avoid conflict. I think that most of us hate it. Those of you who enjoy conflict––the rest of us try to avoid you. :-) And yet, dealing with conflict is necessary. Sometimes, avoiding it only sends problems underground to surface later with far more damage than if we would have dealt with the issue when it first surfaced. But is it always necessary to have those tough conversations when we disagree, are annoyed or offended, or see a prob

In my last post, I gave some reasons why it was important for our middle school and high school kids to be involved in church youth group and I promised some help with that in this post. So here goes. First, we have to remember that there are no guarantees when it comes to parenting. We will be responsible for the kind of parents we are, but our kids are responsible for their own choices and the adults they become. You can do everything right as a parent and your child still

Yup. I was that parent. My kids had to go to church. They also had to go to youth group.It had nothing to do with me being a pastor. It had everything to do with me being a Christian father wanting to pass on my values to my children, and having the humility to know I needed help with that.I suppose if I were a legalist, mean-spirited, or authoritarian, and didn’t have a close relationship with them, it might have backfired. But I’ve never understood why parents who would not

I know, we’ve barely had spring and now I’m talking about summer. But it’s coming and school will be out before you know it. To make the most of the warmer weather and the longer days, decide now how you are going to spend the summer and plan it. Here are a couple of suggestions. If you are going to vacation, schedule it now . Not just the dates, but what are you going to do? Where are you going to go? Have a family meeting to talk about it and that way you get to also enjoy

Linda and I gave our kids a lot of leeway to make their own decisions. But there were some things, depending on their age, that we just told them they had to do. Other things they could ask our advice about, but we’d let them decide. But when it came to obedience, there was no need for advice. They just needed to do as we said. When they were little, bedtime was 8:30. Our kids never came to us at 8:30 and asked, “What do you think, Dad? Think I should go to bed or should I st

James Manning needed to get to court for a hearing on drug related charges. If he didn’t show, there’d be a warrant out for his arrest. But he didn’t have a way to get there. His solution? Steal a car. He and his wife, Teresa, stole a car from a used car lot and headed to the courthouse. While he was standing before the judge, the dealership used a GPS tracking device to locate their missing vehicle. Police showed up and Mr. Manning ended up with some serious jail time. Only

Some acts are hard to follow. If you were a follower of Jesus in the first century, after the death and resurrection of Jesus, now what? Have you ever been through an exhilarating and emotionally draining experience and then afterward, unsure what to do about it? That’s how it was for the disciples. Everything had changed for them. They had just gone through the greatest amount of upheaval that they could imagine. They were brought to the brink of despair at the cross, then t

I woke up at 3a two nights ago and looked for the moon. Sure enough, it was darkened and red, but with a sliver of light along the side. Eventually cloud cover obscured my sight, but three more times in the next hour, my wife and I got out of bed to see it.  I’d seen lunar eclipses before, but this year is different. Have you heard all the talk about the four blood moons and their relationship to prophesy? John Haggee has a best seller out describing his theory (borrowed from

Life is good. You’ve got more than enough to eat. You have reliable transportation, more than what could be said for most people in the world. You have good shelter with central heat and air. You’ve got a decent job. You have family and friends. And you have lots of toys…electronic gadgets up the wazoo. But something’s missing. You can't quite put your finger on it. It’s not that you are never happy. Sometimes you are. But it doesn’t last. There’s just something missing. What