2020 in focus: Carmen’s top 20 trends to watch
As we look back over 2019 there are trends we observe in hindsight but what can we see if we seek to see what’s ahead? Only hindsight is 2020 but here are my top 20 trends for Christians to watch in the year ahead. Persecution. As the world devolves and more and more people set […]
Year End and its beginning, surveying our walk with Christ and God’s ROI
Think of this as an exercise in taking a year-end inventory of your life and cultivating the spiritual soil for an abundant harvest in the year ahead. Taking stock of your spiritual life Get out your 2019 calendar, your journal, your Bible and your check register. Slowly, soberly look through them and take stock. Bible […]
The “Real” Empty Chair
(Re-upping this post from a few years ago as we approach the season when the empty chair at the table seems to loom larger than life. This was originally posted January 11, 2016) For his final State of the Union address, President Barack Obama plans to feature an empty chair to bring attention to the […]
What are you reading? | Why are you here?
He wasn’t exactly looking at the paper he was holding. He was really looking over it. I couldn’t help myself. We were in the lobby of a hotel in New York and I’d been watching him NOT read his paper for several minutes. I moved to the chair nearest the couch where he was sitting. […]
Who do you think you are?
I didn’t need to see the other person’s face to know they were wounded by the words. The tone and words cut deeply. They always do. “Who do you think you are?!” They are almost always words spoken at a volume and in a tone to which almost no one can respond. But if we […]
Are you waiting for the world to end or are you busy being shiny?
The story isn’t just click-bait, it’s a tragic true story stranger than fiction. Everyone assumed the man lived alone on the Dutch farm near the canal. He was the only person anyone ever saw. He worked a garden and milked a goat. No one knew he was keeping his family in the cellar, waiting for […]
Are we saving the earth for children or from them? CNN’s climate town hall had a dark side
People are the problem. Well, prospective people. That was the message from Bernie Sanders and others at CNN’s Climate Town Hall. There are too many people. How to solve the problem? Kill off the children of the poor before they’re even born. Bernie Sanders presented a climate change plan which, he admitted, would cause “some […]
Wading into the ‘send her back’ maelstrom
“Send her back!” That was the chant which rose from the crowd at a Donald Trump re-election rally in Greenville, North Carolina last night. The woman the crowd called to effectively deport is duly elected member of Congress named Ilhan Omar. Somali by birth, Omar immigrated legally to the United States as a child and […]
Apollo 11 and reigniting the hope of heaven
Fifty years ago: is that a long time or not a long a time ago? The answer depends on your perspective. Do you remember where you were the night we landed on the moon? If so, you can likely retell it with wonder and joy. If not, were you likely not yet born and you’ve […]
Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, child of the covenant
Archie. That’s a really cute name for a baby. Officially christened Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, he is the newborn son of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex (aka Harry and Meghan). A few things to note: this christening (aka infant baptism) was compulsory for the royal baby, took place in a private ceremony, at Windsor Castle, […]