The idea for this prayer initiative began in a small, unassuming way. My cousin Elizabeth was in ICU recovering from back surgery. Since the doctors suspected that she had contracted COVID, she was not permitted visitors and was treated by nurses...
It was in a seminary preaching class that I came to a deeper appreciation of Martin Luther King. Jr. (1929-1968). Our class was studying great sermons from American history and listened to MLK's "I Have a Dream" Speech on August 28, 1963, as the...
Francis Xavier (1506-1552) was full of worldly ambition when he enrolled at the University of Paris. He shared a dorm room with Ignatius of Loyola, several years older and already well along in faith. Francis resisted Ignatius' overtures to follow...
I don't appreciate it when people label me. I feel constrained by the limits that labels force on me. There is truth to the quote attributed to Soren Kierkegaard, that "once you label me, you negate me." Born in the small city of Tel Mahre in...
Early one Sunday morning, Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) watched sailing vessels navigate the Chesapeake Bay as he stood on its banks. The sight of these majestic ships moving freely tormented him as a slave. He had grown accustomed to the sight,...
Jim Elliot (1927-1956) was driven by a single, overwhelming passion to share the gospel with the Auca tribe (now the Waorani people) living deep in the Ecuador jungle. The tribe was considered dangerous and violent. Some thought Jim was foolish to...
I tend to drift in prayer. I end up getting lost in thoughts about people and circumstances for which I pray. Tell me you don't have this problem!Matthew Henry (1662-1714) is well-suited to come to our rescue. This Presbyterian pastor loved doing...
It was a spectacular spring day in 1863. Foliot Sandford Pierpoint (1835-1917) sat on a hillside overlooking his native city of Bath, England. Flowers were in full bloom and the winding Avon River added to the bucolic scene. A poem began to take...
According to a nineteenth century biographer, Paul Gerhardt (1606-1676) was "trained in the school of affliction." He studied for the ministry during a calamitous period of the Thirty Years War. He was called to serve a church in Berlin, only to be...
America was riding high in the saddle in the early twentieth century. We were flexing our economic and political muscles on the international stage. New inventions and technologies were taking hold. Our progress seemed inevitable.Georgia Harkness...
He may be the first conscientious objector in recorded history. Martin of Tours (316-397) aspired to begin the catechumen (apprentice) process to join a Christian church at the tender age of ten, contrary to his parent's wishes. As a decorated...
It was a watershed day in the life of Thomas Goodwin (1600-1680). He was twenty years old, a student at Cambridge in England. In the words of one biographer, Thomas had been dividing his time between "making merry and becoming a celebrity...
Pudens was a soldier, an assistant in charge of the Carthage prison. He was on duty when six prisoners from a small town were brought to the jail awaiting trial. The charge against them was a refusal to offer sacrifice to the emperor. They were...
COVID punctured a hole in our veneer of invincibility. Who could have ever conceived of a worldwide pandemic in the twenty first century? Plagues were only something we read about in history books. Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) was a stalwart of the...
John Wesley asked a gathering of English Methodists, "Our brethren in America call aloud for help. Who will go?" Francis Asbury (1745-1816), a twenty-six-year-old itinerant preacher, was one who answered the call. He said goodbye to his parents and...
Imagine a church sanctuary without a pulpit, communion table, choir loft or organ. The worship space is simple and functional in design. Wooden benches face each other, the back pews slightly elevated to improve sight lines. Douglas Steere...
I grew up in a Protestant church with an empty cross in its sanctuary. It was polished and clean, made of burnished brass. Whenever I entered a Catholic church, I couldn't quite get over the visual of Jesus hanging on a cross. Catholics contend a...
Elizabeth Prentiss (1818-1878) suffered from chronic insomnia and debilitating migraines. She once wrote to a friend that she "scarcely knew a moment free from pain." She lived with her husband George in New Bedford, Massachusetts where he served...