What If the Best Part of Christmas Isn’t the Part We Think?

Commentary I find myself both grateful and uneasy during these weeks. Family gatherings, long-held traditions, cultural expectations, and religious observances all converge at once. It is a season filled with joy and meaning—but also with pressure that can quietly reshape what we value and how we experience one another. Have you ever paused to think […]

What Happens to Christmas When the Children Are Grown?—a reflection

What happens to Christmas when the noise fades, the presents stop, and the children are grown? That question has stayed with me as I’ve grown older—and as Christmas itself has quietly changed. My mother died from tuberculosis  when I was two years old.  I was raised by my grandparents. We were very poor. Our house […]

What Do You Think Informality Fosters In Church Assemblies?–A Commentary

  What does informality encourage in our church assemblies?  Spontaneity? Authenticity? Participation? A current article  in Christianity Today on this subject caught my attention. There is no doubt that church today is much more informal than when I was growing up in my 50’s and 60’s.  It is no passing tendency.  “Instead, it’s part of […]