If you could custom-order a messiah, it probably wouldn’t be Jesus. In His day, He did not fit the popular idea of a savior — and still doesn’t by many people today. Consider this unlikely Messiah: HE HAD AN UNLIKELY BIRTH He wasn’t born in a palace to wealthy or...

What is it about Jesus that fascinates so many people? He never commanded a vast army or sat on an earthly throne. He grew up in a middling town that was never mentioned in the Old Testament. Before his public ministry, people knew him as the carpenter’s son and little...

Did the resurrection of Christ really happen? Lee Strobel didn’t think so. When his wife started attending church, Lee set out to debunk this audacious claim of Christianity. Using his investigative reporting skills, he interviewed theologians, pastors, archaeologists, medical doctors and professors. In the end, he came to a conclusion he...

  In their 1985 book, Habits of the Heart, Robert Bellah and Richard Madsen referenced a nurse they code-named Sheila Larson who adhered to a faith she herself dubbed “Sheilaism.” The authors were chronicling the gradual shift of American religion from being corporate and public to privatized and inwardly-focused. To illustrate this change, they quoted Sheila: “I believe...

  Easter Sunday 2016 is in the books, and it’s a safe bet that if you attended church, you heard a message on resurrection. The most important day on the Christian calendar is about an empty tomb, a risen Savior and new life. But Easter also brings death. As the...

  Now’s the time for mirth and play,Saturday’s an holiday;Praise to heaven unceasing yield,I’ve found a lark’s nest in the field. Christopher Smart, Hymns for the Amusement of Children  I don’t know about you, but finding a bird’s nest on the ground wouldn’t excite me like it once did. When...

  Easter Sunday has come and gone, but the season of Easter continues. Known as Eastertide in many church traditions, the season kicks off on Easter Sunday, stretching over 50 days until Pentecost, the celebration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2. When we think of Easter, most...