In Sudan, the battle for the soul of the church is not only fought with guns. It is also fought with court papers, administrative orders, and calculated division. For years, successive authorities in Khartoum have pressured church leaders to comply, encouraged internal conflict, and then moved to se
As we were finishing a counseling session, Jill looked at me with concern, her eyebrows furrowed. “You got distracted,” she bluntly stated. Unfortunately, Jill was right. Just outside my workspace, several pastors gathered in the church office lobby, talking and laughing. I’d got...
Autumn is a season of changes. At our home, as the leaves yellowed and the days shortened, my youngest child started middle school. That means picture books have me feeling a little nostalgia for the past these days, right alongside a lot of excitement for new things to come. Man...
A couple of years ago, two college students challenged me—a woman in her 50s—to memorize the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5–7). Inwardly, I balked, but now I know that few things in my 35 years of following Jesus have been more transformative than committing Jesus’s most famous ser...
In early October, a 20-year-old Coptic Christian was kidnapped and killed at the hands of the Islamic State group. Milad Malak lived in Sebarbay, Egypt, and served as a church deacon at a local Coptic church. However, because of the country’s economic decline, he traveled to Liby...
