When you turn 65 your friends say things like, “Do you still have the fire in the belly?” and, of course, the response is “Yes, but it’s probably Mexican food.”  Others send you books on fanning the flames of marriage because the fastest growing divorce rate is for couples in their 60’s. AARP has turned up the heat on supplemental insurance and the financial advisors are preparing me for cutting back and dialing down.  Fires go out for one reason or another. It doesn’t matter what age you are.  Either through neglect or exhaustion or a host of other reasons the fire fades. Oftentimes we simply run out of reasons…

I love hands.  So much of Scripture is about hands – hands that create, that work, that cover to protect and to fight.  We are held in our parents hands at birth and our own hands are held by our children and loved ones when we leave.  Hands hold and they let go.  Hands open and they close. Hands say hello and they say good-bye.  We wear on our hands our constant reminder of fidelity and commitment.  From childhood we are taught to fold our hands to pray and open our hands to bless. We give them and we lend them.   Hands are beautiful and smooth.  They are rough and…

I wrote this to several of my father’s closest friends after his funeral.  Enclosed was a special gift for each of them. Many years ago, one of Dad’s several dreams as a young man was to sing professionally as an operatic tenor.  He worked at developing his voice with the same discipline and enthusiasm he applied to everything else he did.  One of his life’s greatest disappointments was the day his teacher told him the dream was out of his reach.  As with so much else in his life, he turned the experience into a story.  “Fred, you have everything a tenor needs to succeed.  You have the dedication, the…

Over the years I’ve noticed that people make three basic mistakes in introducing Os Guinness.  The most common is their trying so hard to sound as smart, educated, articulate, well-read, urbane, witty and provocative as Os that they badly overshoot the mark and end up sounding like their remarks were prepared by a graduate student eager to please the professor.  The second trap is spending so much time on Os’s achievements, honors, awards, publications, speeches and groundbreaking work in social thought that they use up the time that Os has to speak.  The third is they always bring up the question “So..are you the same Guinness family as Guinness beer?”…

Two years ago when Tim was last with us we introduced him in the context of a growing movement toward cultural, political and social engagement among young evangelicals. It was apparent then that we were entering a new phase of evangelicalism that was waiting for someone to articulate a theology that is more than proclamation but also more than well-intentioned and superficial social action. That movement toward a deep and active interest in social justice, culture, the arts and new institutions is now a groundswell. It is exciting…and it is dangerous. Without an adequate theology for grounding them and giving roots to their excitement theirenthusiasm will wither quickly. They will…

In Wendell Berry’s book, Jayber Crow, he describes life in the small river town of Port William, Kentucky. That’s far removed from Erwin’s place of birth, El Salvador, or where he currently lives, Los Angeles. However, I think Wendell Berry points to something that illustrates Erwin and why he is so unique. Berry depicts the young ministers who come to town as “those who had learned to have a very high opinion of God and a very low opinion of His works – although they could tell you that the world had been made by God Himself. What they didn’t see was that it is beautiful, and that some of…

Last year a friend passed along a new book announcement to me and asked me if I had ever heard of Austin or his new book – Take Your Best Shot. I had not…so I passed it along to Steve Haas at World Vision who wrote back that he knew Austin and his family and they were terrific. I passed that note along to Michael Hyatt at Nelson Publishing who passed my note along to Dan Gutwein, Austin’s father. So, after about the fourth pass of the ball I met Dan but tonight is the first time I’ve met Austin. My game is passing and his is shooting. So, I’m…

Eight years ago here at Phoenecian I made some opening remarks for the first time.  As you recall, that was September 2001 and we had just experienced the still incomprehensible attack on the twin towers, the Pentagon and the resistance of those brave passengers on Flight 93 led by Todd Beamer.  Someone told me I needed to say something at the very beginning of our time together that week-end.  Since then, I’ve made a few opening remarks every year.  This year I truly believed there was no need to do that.  Nothing was on my heart or mind.  I had nothing I felt called to say to you – until…

Several years ago at The Gathering conference we began to focus on young leaders of growing ministries. Over time this has become one of the most popular classes at the conference as everyone looks to this session as an encouragement, a challenge and a glimpse inside the work God is doing in a generation of globally connected and imaginative young men and women. We have hosted George Srour, the young man who as a college senior founded Building Tomorrow, a ministry building schools for orphans in Uganda. Jason Russell, one of three young film makers, who flew to Uganda to document the plight of young soldiers and created the movement…

Julius Caesar Johann Sebastian Bach Leo Tolstoy Nelson Mandela Steven Jobs Aristotle Louis Armstrong John Lennon Rudyard Kipling Cyrus the Great William Wordsworth David Bussau What do these people have in common? They were all orphans. Most often when we think of orphans we imagine a helpless child totally dependent on the kindness of strangers. All the typical pictures we see only confirm that. All the mail we receive emphasizes their vulnerability. We rarely imagine orphans as having the normal personality traits and gifts of children born to and raised by their natural families, and we often in our perfectly understandable mindset of charity and compassion fail to think of…