You could have knocked me over with a feather. Never in all of my 37 years of life had I heard of my dad or mom going to the movies. I mean, we were holiness people. We just didn't go to the movies. So when they informed me last spring that they had gone to see Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, I was floored. When I asked what happened to "not going to the movies because we were holiness people," Dad said he'd never really had a problem with going to the movie theater. I nearly choked on my tongue when he said that.

Today, human needs surface more than we wish they would! We witness occasional poverty, chronic marginalization, systemic oppression, racial prejudice, inadequate healthcare and housing, unemployment, drug abuse, conjugal violence, prison overcrowding, estranged families, and child abuse. As a result, people frequently confront us for charity or aid, whether it is on the street corner, at our doorsteps, or even while we're in line at the bank or store.

How should we respond to these victims of circumstances beyond their control? What is the Christian obligation?

Ahab was one wicked king! So evil, in fact, that the Scripture says that Ahab "did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him" (I Kings 16:33). He was one dark king!

Ahab was one wicked king! So evil, in fact, that the Scripture says that Ahab "did more to provoke the LORD, the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him" (I Kings 16:33). He was one dark king!

When churches speak of “revival,” the model most often referred to is the account of Pentecost in Acts 2, and there are good reasons for this. The disciples obeyed Jesus, they gathered together in harmony as He commanded (“with one accord in one place” [Acts 2:1 KJV]), and they waited obediently for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. God kept His promise and allowed the first “infant” steps of the Church to reflect God’s miraculous, barrier-breaking love and power.

The resurrection of Jesus demonstrated that not even death can stop God’s purpose and mission.

I walked today where Jesus walked . . . literally. I was on the cobblestone streets of Nazareth, His hometown. I had come there specifically to view the place where the opening chapter of the Christmas story was written.

I noticed a sign in Hebrew, Arabic, and English on a light post in front of a church. Some dissenting soul had defaced the symbol of the Christian cross with black spray paint. A small thing, but an indication of the tensions in this, the largest Arab town in Israel, where Christians make up about thirty-five percent of the 64,200 population.

The faithful and busy lay people of Saint Clair Avenue Church of the Nazarene in Toronto, Ontario, taught me—then a neighborhood teenager—how to fish for perch and pickerel and to dream about muskies in Canadian lakes and rivers. Among these people was my unforgettable fishing mentor, Mr. Paddle. He knew his way around in the rugged forest wilderness and in the crowded streets of Canada's largest city. I looked up to him, and others, as trusted models of the Christian life.

The Nazarene founders might have chosen October 1907 as the church's official anniversary date, for that's when a new denomination was created at the First General Assembly in Chicago. However, the Second General Assembly, in October 1908, expanded the infant denomination's numbers and made the denomination truly national by reaching into the South.

When the founders chose an anniversary date in 1923, they trumped the "logic of firsts" with "the logic of inclusion." They deliberately chose 1908. We have good reason to be glad that they did.

My life is an answer to prayer. I grew up in the Los Angeles area as an at-risk child with a single mother. My mother worked constantly, my father was half a continent away, and my older sister, Susie, became my parental figure. I was not taken to church or taught about the Heavenly Father whom I now know longed to be in a loving relationship with me.

As I sat down at the computer to write what was on my heart, the phone rang. On the line was a district superintendent who told me the sad news that one of his pastors had just surrendered their credential. "Conduct unbecoming a minister" was the reason given. The superintendent told me of the heart anguish within the pastor, the spouse and family, and throughout the entire congregation. This pastor's life journey was not going well.