“I will cool you insensibly, by degrees, by little and little.” At the end of one year, on the cusp of another, I remember the words that once haunted the soul of seventeenth-century pastor John Bunyan (1628–1688). He imagined the devil skulking nearby, not as a raging dragon but as a patient and calculating snake,…
Year: 2024
‘A Man at Church Thinks We Should Marry — I Disagree’
Audio Transcript Every week, our inbox gets some very interesting scenarios we need to work out together, like this one today from an anonymous young woman. “Hello, Pastor John, and thank you for your ministry and for this podcast. My question for you is about how I can respond in faith when someone insists that…
Joy Banishes Burnout: How Pastors Finish Well
Statistics of servants of God who do not end well can be very discouraging. Dr. J. Robert Clinton conducted a now-famous study of how leaders in Scripture finished their tenures. Of those about whom he was able to get sufficient data, Clinton determined that about one in three finished well. Commenting on the contemporary scene,…
Honor Your (Elderly) Parents: How Adult Children ‘Make Some Return’
Recently, I enjoyed reconnecting with a friend from college who is now sixty-something years old (like me) and who cares for her elderly mom (like me). There are a lot of us! This friend described how she and her husband took her mother, a widow in declining health, into their home; they had thought the…
Apply Now! New Jersey Black Women’s Collective 2025 Leadership Institute
by Stacy Jackson December 26, 2024 This year, the Leadership Institute will introduce two new sessions for Black women leaders — AI Exploration and Cyber Security Adventure. { alert(‘URL copied to clipboard’); }) .catch((error) => { console.error(‘Error copying URL: ‘, error); }); } ]]> The New Jersey Black Women’s Collective (NJBWC) is calling on the…
Elon Musk Says MacKenzie Scott Giving Billions To Liberal Causes Is ‘Concerning’
by Mitti Hicks December 26, 2024 In 2024 alone, MacKenzie Scott has donated more than $2 billion to 199 organizations. { alert(‘URL copied to clipboard’); }) .catch((error) => { console.error(‘Error copying URL: ‘, error); }); } ]]> Elon Musk is criticizing Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife MacKenzie Scott’s charity work. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO shared…