“The first will be last,” Jesus said. “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” A quick perusal of Jesus’ words will turn up all sorts of instructions that don’t seem to line up with what we’d consider “common sense.” He told his followers to “Turn the other cheek” (didn’t He know about terrorism?) and to “Walk a [...]

Immediate. You can find and fund a small business in a developing nation in under five minutes on Kiva.org. Buy a pair of Tom’s Shoes, and a second pair is sent to a needy child in a developing nation (you can actually go on a “Shoe Drop” trip and deliver the shoes yourself). The action is (or, at least feels) [...]

You may have heard about the controversy over the elephant exhibit at the Los Angeles Zoo. The zoo is building a $42 million exhibit for Billy, its only elephant. There are three sides to the argument: those who say that $42 mil is too much to spend on one elephant, those who say the new “Pachyderm Forest” project is just [...]

Your church cannot be missional and have video venues. There, I’ve said it. I know it’s contrary to what Mark Driscoll and Matt Chandler and others are saying and doing. The multi-site trend continues to grow among churches in the United States. It’s been discussed and debated at length in the blogosphere. Perhaps the best discussion took place back in [...]

All around you there are groups of people who are influencing and being influenced. You can (and should) be part of the discussion, but you’re too busy doing something that nobody else cares about. In your little “Christian” subculture bubble, you have no influence and few friends. Here are some tips to help you become interesting enough to actually make [...]

The concept of “people groups” has radically affected they way we do missions. It used to be that missionaries were sent to minister to the people of a given country. These days, however, we recognize that people group themselves and identify with communities that may not necessarily conform to (sometimes random and often disputed) political boundaries. Consider the following definition, [...]

You may not be aware of this, but even the “working class” in the United States is richer than most of the people in the world. This economic discrepancy is known in even the most isolated of places, and certainly everywhere missionaries go. The image on the upper right is a cartogram (a map deliberately distorted to illustrate global statistics) [...]

Fear is a powerful thing. It can cause us to do some very irrational things. Of all the threats that we face on a daily basis, we put more time, money, and effort into protecting ourselves from things that we find very scary, whether they are likely to happen to us or not. In Chapter 5 of his 2005 book [...]

They say that Coca-Cola is the world’s most recognizable brand. No matter  where you go in the world, chances are that you can get the familiar caramel-colored fizzy drink. Coke is everywhere. Coke doesn’t taste the same in every country, though. They adjust the flavor based on local tastes. In Europe, the cola is less sweet than its American counterpart. [...]

From the early days of television through the 1970′s, there were three television networks. They had no competition and total control over what Americans watched on TV. Then came cable. 24 hours a day of news. Sports. Movies. Weather. Home shopping. Music videos. They focused on smaller markets, but gave people what they wanted to watch. Suddenly, people had choices. [...]