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The heat is on! Well, it was anyway.     We were a little warm in church last week. The auditorium was fine, but the lobby? Something was definitely wrong. It was bad enough that we had no air on a 90° day, a day we had planned extra fellowship in the new lobby after our 4:00 PM annual celebration. The lobby was so hot we had to move the food into the auditorium where it was cool. But you wouldn’t believe Monday morning. It was 96° in there when I arrived and the heat was ON!

We are a camping family. I’m sure for all of you who were born and raised in the city, that is your stereotype for those of us from Wisconsin. I will have to admit that I grew up enjoying the outdoors: hunting, fishing, camping, hiking and biking. Most of my happiest childhood memories were in the woods, hiking the bluffs along the Mississippi, on the Mississippi fishing, or sleeping in a tent in a campground. But believe it or not, most people in Wisconsin are no more famili

That moment changed everything for me. I saw the world through a different lens. The words, “love” and “respon-sibility” took on completely different meanings. It was one thing to go from “single” to “husband.” That was actually pretty easy (for me––not for Linda!). But going from “man” to “father” changed me forever.     Junior wasn’t always “Junior.” He actually has a different middle name than me and we originally planned on calling him “Daniel,” for his middle name. But e

It started with a lack of oversight. We don’t know the whole story yet, but it won’t be long before we learn that maintenance had slipped and accountability was lacking. Someone didn’t do something they should have done. When disaster struck, those responsible minimized the damage. Oversight agencies were assured that the owners would take care of it themselves. All the while, black oozed from the damaged area deep beneath the surface at the rate of 210,000 gallons a day (ini

Unbelievable. I was dumbstruck. You’ve heard all about it as well and probably became as disgusted as I was when I read the story. A Tennessee woman was so eager to be a mom that she spent a lot of money and went through years of preparation to adopt a child from Russia. But when he turned out to be more of a challenge then she bargained for, she thought she could just return him, like you would a coffee pot at Wal-Mart because it lacked the features you expected to be standa

A number of years ago, in a mental institution just outside Boston, Mass., a young girl known as “Little Annie” was locked in the dungeon. This institution was one of the more enlightened ones for the treatment of the mentally disturbed. However, the doctors felt that a dungeon was the only place for those who were “hopelessly” insane. In Little Annie’s case, they saw no hope for her, so she was confined to a living death in that small cage which received little light and eve

Philosopher Walter Kaufmann wrote a book ironically titled, . After explaining our cosmic insignificance, he concluded: “What I want to do and would advise others to do is to make the most of life: put into it all you have got, and live, and, if possible, die with some measure of nobility.”      I cannot help but to say that to tell us to die with nobility when there is no hope beyond the grave is farcical at best. Compare Kaufmann’s philosophy to Jesus’ words: “I am the resu

Isn’t it amazing the things people will believe? Mark Twain once quipped, “A lie can get half-way around the world before the truth can even get its boots on.” I get so tired of the emails that get forwarded around the web from one gullible enthusiast to the next, without a lot of thought given to whether they are promoting truth or lies. Many of the most common forwards are urban legends that had been proven false decades ago but gained new life with the internet….and people

Have you seen the latest video depicting youth violence in the Seattle bus tunnel? I have been alarmed of late by the growing number of security tapes from school busses, outside businesses in urban areas, and now in a metro bus terminal; videos that depict kids nearly killing other kids (and in the case of Chicago teen, actually doing so). Watching a group of girls pummeling, kicking, and even stomping on the head of another girl should be enough for any of us to become alar

“Hey little squirrel!” He looked up at me with his beady little eyes, his mouth dropped open, and he turned and scampered off in the opposite direction….across the church lobby!      Let me explain ☺. We have a beautiful lobby in our church with some very comfortable furniture and big open windows. Some days it is quiet out there and I like to use it to study, pray, and even for some of my meetings.      While sitting here on the leather sofa in front of the floor to ceiling

On Thursday afternoon, I stood beside Rosemary VanVleet and prayed with her family that she could be ushered into her new home in heaven in peace. As we finished praying, there was a marked difference in her breathing. A few minutes later, she did just that. With Vernon sitting at her side, holding and gently stroking her hand, she left this earth behind and stepped into eternity to live in heaven. Just three days before I spoke with her at Lutheran General Hospital and asked

A 70 year old woman was pulled from the debris of a collapsed building in Haiti on Sunday after lying there for five days! They located her partially by using a sophisticated electronic device that is able to detect heartbeats. Once they knew the area where she was buried, they pinpointed her location because rescuers could hear her singing under the concrete. Can you believe that? She was singing a Christian hymn!      There are some rare happy stories in this unbelievable t