In the contemporary world, the phrase “you are not your own” sounds almost offensive to many people from the post-modern culture. Advertisements keep telling us that we are the owners of our lives, we have to choose the best for ourselves first, and that nobody is allowed to tell us what to do with our bodies or our lives.

What is the apostle Paul trying to tell us in his epistle to the Corinthians and particularly in these verses? Why should we lose some of our freedom and trust our lives completely to God?

Every four years, Nazarenes in Canada and the U.S. have the opportunity to gather for a mid-quadrennial conference on mission and evangelism. This February, thousands will journey to Kansas City for Mission 2007 or M7. The theme is, "Into faith…out to the world."

As we think about this theme, it represents opportunity as well as invitation. The invitation to journey deeper into faith is important for us regardless of where we are in the world. I hope that this theme characterizes strengthening convictions concerning the following:

A few months ago I awoke to a typically rainy and gray Pacific Northwest November morning. The flapping butterflies in my stomach took up so much room that I could not fit in any breakfast. I had not felt so nervous about standing in front of a congregation since 2001 when I preached my first sermon as a youth intern.

There is a great deal of popularity regarding UFO’s and “extraterrestrial” contact. This fascination can be seen in popular entertainment through books, movies, documentaries, the internet culture, etc. It should, therefore, resonate with our greater culture when I declare the certain news that there are many extraterrestrials here on earth today! These creatures do not have any physical features that would enable others to identify them as other-worldly. However, they are indeed strangers in this world.

Popular music has a history of “one-hit wonders”—groups or individuals who have a break out number one hit song but are rarely heard from again, at least on the music charts. 

As you read this, perhaps one such song is going through your head.  Some of these songs were so impactful and sold so many albums for the artist that its a wonder the success could not be repeated. 

For many years my husband and I did lots of traveling and always seemed to end up at the right place at the right time. So, why do I have these recurring dreams in which I get lost in some strange city?

This week, my dream took a different turn. I was in an inner city on a clean up crew.The filth and stench of the ghetto riled my senses as I pulled dirty rags from empty holes, scrubbed stains that wouldn't go away, and felt the futility of trying to solve the world's problems.

Last Sunday Hazel joined our church, ending a faith journey that began some forty years ago.

Soon after my family joined the Church of the Nazarene in the 1960s, I became involved in a door-to-door evangelistic campaign. I was assigned to a low-income apartment complex near the church. I went out knocking on doors that Saturday morning, looking for families who had no church home.

When I recently visited my grandmother’s old house in East Texas, I realized it had changed. The porch that my brother and I used to leap off of, seemingly risking life and limb, I could now easily manage with one step, not even needing the stairs that led to the front door. Her pasture, the “finish line” of many races my brother and I had run from the porch when we were children, was now just a few long strides from the porch. It would not be much of a race at all now.

“How did this place get so small?” I mused to myself.

It began with Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) students sitting in guest homes on a tour with their music group right after Christmas. After giving a concert that day, members of Pointless, an all-male accapella group, watched television news accounts of the tsunami that destroyed coastal villages in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and elsewhere, killing hundreds of thousands of people. They decided then that a portion of the proceeds of their tour should go toward assisting the tsunami survivors.

When I recently visited my grandmother’s old house in East Texas, I realized it had changed. The porch that my brother and I used to leap off of, seemingly risking life and limb, I could now easily manage with one step, not even needing the stairs that led to the front door. Her pasture, the “finish line” of many races my brother and I had run from the porch when we were children, was now just a few long strides from the porch. It would not be much of a race at all now.

“How did this place get so small?” I mused to myself.