Have you ever had one of those days where negative thoughts, memories of mistakes you've made in the past, and even doubts about God's direction for your life brought you to the edge of despair? If you're a Christian striving to do God's will, of course you have had those days. In fact, if you're in...

Real Hope & ChangeIf you're like me, you haven't been thrilled by the changes that you seen in our society during the past four years. Income is down, jobs are fewer, taxes are higher, the price of gasoline has doubled, and the demands on you have gotten greater. Many times, it seems that those who ...

Fundraising is exhausting, especially when you ask and ask and come up empty. As much as you keep smiling in the face of adversity, rejection is hard to take. It's discouraging to scan your database and find a drought of major donors. Raising money becomes even more staggering when you feel like you...

I love hearing a good turn of a phrase or a creative play on words — words crafted together that make you think or make you smile. Something that makes me think or laugh comes from words that are put together which actually contradict each other. The literary term is oxymoron. These words should not...

On Tuesday morning the back of my car was filled with supplies that needed to be taken into the center. So, I parked around the corner from the center and called into the office to ask the volunteer for her help. After unloading the items, I parked in the back parking lot. Walking to the office, I s...

As center directors, it falls on our shoulders to shepherd those who serve under us. Whether they are staff members, board members, volunteers, clients, or donors, we have been called to show the love of Jesus Christ to each one. As a new center director, this was one of the first lessons God taught...

We have all done it — we come to a genealogy list in the Bible and skip right over that section. We think to ourselves, Just get to the good stuff — the story. Why did God have the writer put a list of "who was the father of whom" in the Scripture anyway? Because there is an important me...

Tired? Depressed? Worried? Burdened? Recently I had the privilege of conducting a brief affinity exercise with Christian ministry workers in a mid-western city. While I was not surprised that they voiced the fact that their ministries had fewer paid staff as the recession grinds on, the most surpris...