Here is yet another way we get our callings wrong. We think them rare, or heroic, or extraordinary. We think them exceptional, somehow unique, almost beyond belief. Like winning the lottery, maybe. Or coming down with an unusual, life-changing disease. … (read more)
There are so many ways to get missionary callings wrong. One of the most common, as I mentioned last month, is to suppose that we are called to go somewhere and to do some thing, first of all. Well, no, … (read more)
A few weeks ago we completed our annual Missionary Candidates’ Briefing Course. Fifteen candidates and missionary inquirers from here and there around the country (and a few from elsewhere in the world) gathered at our offices on Clifton Avenue. We … (read more)
Near the end of our recent visit to the Holy Land, we made our way to the Chapel of the Ascension, in the At-Tur district of Jerusalem. I anticipated the stop with considerable eagerness. Here Jesus issued marching orders that … (read more)
Unlike many sites in the Holy Land, no one seems to know, precisely, where Emmaus might have been. This uncertainty surprised me, while visiting the Holy Land recently. Emmaus, I should have thought, is the sort of place you might … (read more)
I have recently had the spectacular privilege of visiting the Holy Land. On one fine day our pilgrim group journeyed to the ruins of Caesarea Philippi, once the administrative center of Philip the Tetrarch. Philip was the son of Herod … (read more)
Everything is near, it seems, in the Holy Land: you can travel from the shores of the Mediterranean to the banks of the Jordan River in a single afternoon. You can travel from the Golan to Masada in a day. … (read more)
Some dear old friends of ours have recently gifted us with tickets to Israel – just now, in the first days of Lent. I can hardly believe the generosity! We returned from our pilgrimage a few days ago. Let me … (read more)
I have recently read a psalm that called to mind a date in March, that reminded me of a singular, passionate teenager in old Ireland and his radical conversion to Christ, his irresistible calling to mission, and the evangelistic movement … (read more)
For the first time in the history of planet earth, the Christian church is a truly global phenomenon. And it is not barely global, either. Approximately one out of five of our Christian family is an Asian sister or brother. … (read more)