Category: Practical Theology
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Do You Deserve My Help?
Read more: Do You Deserve My Help?He approaches us at the Chevron station on the corner of Rosecrans and Sepulveda, where, on a clear day, you can see the skyscrapers of downtown L.A. cupped in the palm of the San Gabriel mountains, and overhead the planes queued up in the vast expanse of blue sky, waiting to land at LAX. Vinny,…
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SSA: A Dad’s Perspective (Guest Post)
Read more: SSA: A Dad’s Perspective (Guest Post)Allow me to introduce myself. First and foremost, I’m a sinner saved by grace. I’m a husband and a father. I’ve been a youth leader, Sunday school teacher, deacon and elder. I served in the Air Force for thirty years. I was a three-sport letterman in high school, played college football, and played seven years…
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SSA: A Mom’s Perspective (Guest Post)
Read more: SSA: A Mom’s Perspective (Guest Post)My name is Donna, and I’d like to tell you about my son. Bryan is my second child, coming four years after his big brother, Jayson, and on his dad’s 31st birthday. He didn’t have a swollen and scrunched up face like some newborns, but was beautiful from the very beginning. His paternal grandfather was…
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A Kinda Gay Q&A
Read more: A Kinda Gay Q&ASince publishing my article “I’m (Kinda Sorta Yeah Not Really) Gay” last month, I’ve received a lot of follow-up questions. Not so much about the article, but about the specifics of my struggle with same-sex attraction. Here are some of the most frequently asked questions. When did you realize you were, you know, gay? If…
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A New Model for Ministerial Training
Read more: A New Model for Ministerial TrainingExcessive student debt is a problem. A big problem. And a problem that shows no signs of reversing trend anytime soon. A recent article by Scott Cohn, a senior correspondent for CNBC, noted that the average 2011 college graduate was saddled with over twenty-five thousand dollars in debt. But this is not just an abstract…
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Dealing with Death
Read more: Dealing with DeathAfter only a month in Scotland, word came for my wife that her grandmother had died. Once I found out, I knew it meant that she would be returning home for the service. It would be a painful process for her. Death is, to our senses, utterly irreversible. People that we love dearly pass across…
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Liturgical Living
Read more: Liturgical LivingWhen I took my job as a nanny/housekeeper, I had no idea how much repetition it would involve. My days revolve around the never-finished tasks of preparing food, making beds, washing dishes, putting away clothes, assisting with homework, sweeping floors, etc. At first I resented the sisyphean nature of housework–it seemed a cruel waste of…
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The Table That Prayed For Me
Read more: The Table That Prayed For MeShe approaches the table slowly, hands laden with plates of food, and I recognize her immediately: Marina from Moldova. She had been our waitress on our last visit, had spoken to us in Russian, and we had prayed for her health. That was at least six months ago, and now, though she isn’t our waitress,…
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Straight Idolatry
Read more: Straight IdolatryI admit it. I’ve tried to “pray the gay away.” I’ve spent nights on my knees, asking God to take away my homosexual desires. Any Christian who struggles with same-sex attraction has probably done the same, and rightly so. Casting our cares on God should be the first thing we do (1 Peter 5:7). So…
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Getting Grounded
Read more: Getting GroundedThis last week, I learned about Earthing. If this sounds like a hippie-influenced, granola-society type of activity… you’re probably right. Though it’s proponents claim that there is scientific research to validate the claims of this practice, the basic gist is that we as humans accumulate loads of electron imbalances from the stress, emotions, work, and…