Equatorial ocean regions of the world are noted for those occasional phenomena called the "doldrums." In such times the winds cease, the seas go flat, the air becomes oppressive, and sailing vessels come to a standstill. Without a breath of wind to catch in the sails, boats can be trapped for days in this death-like calm. In "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," Samuel Taylor Coleridge describes it well:

E. Stanley Jones, a 20th century Methodist missionary and theologian, impacts us with the strong message that we enter the Kingdom personally, but we live in it corporately. Salvation is individual. Christ calls each of us to a personal decision to make Him Lord of our lives. But from there, we enter the family of God, a lifelong journey with our fellow brothers and sisters within the Body of Christ.

Planning meaningful church events is often a daunting task, no matter the size of your church or the scope of the event. Limited budgets, a volunteer labor pool, ambiguous objectives, and unrealistic timeframes-all are challenges I try to avoid in my professional role as a meeting and event planner.

Yet these are often the circumstances faced when you are responsible to organize a church event. In light of these challenges, the key to achieving the success you want lies in proper and intentional advance planning.

When I was 17, I made a life-changing decision. I left my parents' lake property telling them I had to work, would spend the night at our house, and return to the lake the next day.

Within the holiness tradition, we confess the transforming work of God that we call entire sanctification. What does this confession mean for our own lives?

This concept can mean different things to different people. So is everyone right in his or her own interpretation, or does this concept have a specific meaning? 

Cultivate the hospitable heart. We should include time for the word, the smile, the visit, the prayer that will find our neighbor’s need before he has to tell us. Act for others. To give courage to an individual is better than to give money. We can make a person better than his or her best by encouraging a life lived not somehow, but triumphantly!

In September, sometimes as early as late August, Debbie Brown of York, Pennsylvania, starts fluffing trees. Good tree fluffers are hard to find. They are hard working, skilled, and highly trained professionals. Here's what they do: They go to retail stores, unpack the artificial Christmas tree inventory, set up the trees, and create attractive displays of those trees for the purpose of selling them. It's an art.

How do we measure a church?

Attendance, membership, and giving statistics are at times inadequate, if not misleading, indicators of how well churches are fulfilling their mission. The value that members and pastors place on their churches is not easily quantifiable.

I recall a song my mother often sang when I was a child. The chorus urged, "Just keep along the middle, keep along the middle, keep along the middle of the King's highway." As an adult, I realize how vital that admonition was.

In all of life, finding and walking in the middle of God's pathway prevents the risks of extremism on both sides of the road. On one hand, excessive permissiveness leads to anarchy without the safety of wisely planted boundaries. On the other extreme, rigidity becomes deadly legalism with its spiritual condemnation and torture.

I recall a song my mother often sang when I was a child. The chorus urged, "Just keep along the middle, keep along the middle, keep along the middle of the King's highway." As an adult, I realize how vital that admonition was.

In all of life, finding and walking in the middle of God's pathway prevents the risks of extremism on both sides of the road. On one hand, excessive permissiveness leads to anarchy without the safety of wisely planted boundaries. On the other extreme, rigidity becomes deadly legalism with its spiritual condemnation and torture.