This article appears in the Cook County News-Herald Spiritual Reflections Saturday March 28, 2020. I am writing this column at 10:51 in the morning on a bright, sunny, beautiful Tuesday morning March 24, 2020. The snow in the parking lot outside my office window has begun to melt revealing tire stripes of dark, smushy, gravelly mud....
The announcement of Kenny Rogers' death at 81 reminds me of the inevitable certainty set before every one of us. We are uncertain of many things in this day of global pandemic, but of one thing we may be absolutely certain--a day will come, sooner than we might wish, when our name will replace Kenny's...
I want folks to think more globally about a fast spreading virus among a population that is not naturally immune, i.e., coronavirus. As you consider your options for personally participating in the ongoing request for strategical social distancing, please understand that you, personally, are not necessarily the issue here. The effort seeks to reduce exposure...
I came down to my basement office to get a coffee mug. I'm going back upstairs for a cup of coffee and then I'm going to spend a few minutes with R.C. Sproul's book, Truths We Confess. In this book Sproul expounds on the Westminster Confession of Faith, a historical, defining document for churches and...
Dear Cornerstone family, As efforts to assist health and government systems slow the spread of COVID-19 continue to develop, the elders and I have been in contact about the question of public meetings guidelines, recommendations, and requirements. None of us wants to react with fear, nor do we want to respond with presumptuous slowness to an...
Dear family, Most of you, if not all of you, probably have sources of information that you trust regarding what the World Health Organization is now defining as the coronavirus pandemic. A pandemic does not mean that millions are dying across the planet. It means that a specific disease has crossed regional borders and is present...
This Spiritual Reflections column is scheduled for publishing in the Cook County News Herald on Saturday March 14, 2020. The gospel of Mark, filled as it is with eyewitness accounts of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, offers one very specific purpose: to provide essential supportive evidence—proof, if you will--that Jesus is the Christ,...
This post first appeared in the Cook County News-Herald Spiritual Reflections column, 3-7-2020. Metanoia. It’s an ancient Greek word with a contemporary impact. Metanoia is the noun. Metanoeo is the verb. Metanoia means “repentance” in English. We translate the verb with the word “repent.” The word means to have a change of self (heart and mind)...
Cook County News-Herald Spiritual Reflections for April 20, 2019 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, 5 and that he...
This post was first published in the Cook County News-Herald April 6, 2019 as the Spiritual Reflections column. Nashville has become the new Chicago. Each time we drive from Grand Marais to my father-in-law’s home in northern Alabama, near Huntsville, my wife has two consistent requests. The first is that we stop in Bloomington, IL for...
