“Laura, what if you never got married?” Well God, I would feel as if You wasted my life. My own response to the Holy Spirit's question crushed my soul as I realized how wrong my priorities were. In that moment in college, God pried my clenched fist open to release my...
My calling to youth ministry came while I was in college. Being Type A, I was all in. I loved teenagers and wanted them to know the amazing potential they had to love God and make Him known through their natural passion and personal experiences. I traveled the country devoting 100%...
Throughout the tapestry of church history countless threads of Christian suffering, persecution, and martyrdom are woven. This observation should not surprise or dismay us. Jesus himself warned his disciples about the end times: “Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all...
If nothing in common is the key to a good friendship, then my friendship with Mrs. Clothilde Mack was destined from the beginning to be great. She was African-American. I am white. She was 94 at the time I began visiting her each week in her home. I was, well, much...
I have a dream that one day Christians will deeply embrace, graciously forgive, and passionately love all the saints of God. I have a dream we will not be divided by our differences because our differences do not make us deficient. I have a dream that Christ will be preeminent in...
Imagine attending an early church council. Represented are people from Ephesus, Corinth, Galatia, Rome and others. All of them different. All of them represent different cultures, but yet, each are united together. How in the world did they get along? The simple answer, the Holy Spirit worked through one mentor: the Apostle...
In what is probably the most well known sermon in history, The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells the crowd listening to him that those who “hunger and thirst for righteousness will be satisfied” (Matthew 5:6), and that their hunger and thirst are “blessed” in the midst of longing for...
Defend is our annual apologetics conference. This year we had the chance to sit down with a few of our speakers and talk with them on the podcast. Here are a few things I learned: 1. Quantum mechanics is small (but not too small for God). Dr. Neil Shenvi explained that weird...
