Weeks of record low temperatures of - 42, - 26,-17,-11 are causing a freezing phenomenon. Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory reports that the lakes are now more than 85 % iced over. The world’s most famous waterfall, Niagara Falls is frozen enough that professional Canadian ice climber, Will Gadd, was able to climb to the top of the frozen left side. It is not supposed to thaw until May.

Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken

With friends like us the cross hardly needs enemies, although it has many.  Think of how we distort the cross. Many of us probably heard our grandmothers say, “My lumbago is killing me.  It’s my cross.  I must bear it.”  Right then, before we knew what the cross was, we knew we didn’t want one if it made us feel the way Grandma felt. Or it’s presented to us as some horrible struggle we must endure because we follow Jesus. Now it’s true that the cross can mean rejection and persecution for the cause of Christ, but there’s more to it than that...

I had never considered myself a racist. When I was kid, my parents helped me send the coins in my piggy bank to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s work. And I have family members who are African-Americans and Latinos. So I thought I was good.

People are longing to rediscover true community.  We have had enough of loneliness, independence, and competition - Jean Vanier (2)

However, isolation exits even in our explosive electronic communication age:

• We work alongside people we don’t enjoy.
• We live next door to others we don’t know.
• We gather in worship services feeling like another face in the crowd.
• We have no one to share our hurts.
• We learned in grade school how fickle relationships can be.
• As adults we experience the pain of gossip and betrayal.
• Church congregations are often worse on relationships than the world - filled with cliques.
• We help others but no one helps us.
• We end up holding everyone at arm’s length to keep from being hurt.
• We start to look out for number one (3)(4).

Topical Index of Hal's Blogs

(This blog in PowerPoint format attached)

In her eye-opening book Shaping the Journey of Emerging Adults: Life-Giving Rhythms for Spiritual Transformation, co-author Jana Sundene describes her first attempt at mentoring. “I was guilty of approaching her with an agenda—one that really didn’t have much to do with her—rather than exploring her questions. . .. I was also serving a method. The discipleship book that was placed in my hands became the way to serve her. . .. it hung between us like a film that I could barely see her through, and our discussions fell flat.”

My mother used to say she had a hard time disciplining me. "Send you to your room? You would be thrilled to have an excuse to read books uninterrupted. And it seems somehow wrong to take away books from a kid..."

I’ve always understood discipline in two basic lights, one negative and one positive. You either get disciplined, or you are disciplined. Both can result in positive change, but one is somewhat less painful than the other.

Last week saw a front-page story of Texas' first gay marriage. I asked my friend Hope Harris to guest blog for me, responding to this event out of her decades of experience and perspective as a former gay activist before Jesus changed everything in her life.

For well over 25 years I lived openly as a lesbian, advocating for gay rights and Marriage Equality. Just over six years ago I trusted Christ, and since then I have wrestled in depth with resolving my faith and sexuality, gender roles and Marriage Equality. Because of my belief that God's Word is true, I have landed on the side of the Biblical view of these issues. I can't even begin to express what a transformation God has made in me, that He would bring me to the place where I embrace the Biblical definition of marriage as between one man and one woman.

A couple of weeks ago, I read through Exodus chapter 3. The last two verses really jumped out at me.

“I will grant this people favor with the Egyptians, so that when you depart you will not leave empty-handed. Every woman will ask her neighbor and the one who happens to be staying in her house for items of silver and gold and for clothing. You will put these articles on your sons and daughters – thus you will plunder Egypt!”

God didn’t initially instruct Moses to have the men demand it of the Egyptians. No, the women would “ask” it of their neighbors and houseguests (both feminine in the Hebrew). God used the social skills of women to accomplish His purposes in supplying what the Israelites would need in resources and clothing for their journey. Women asking other women to give them these items of value. “May I have your silver, please? And, throw in your gold jewelry, by the way. Oh, I want that dress, too.” Isn’t that interesting?

Today is Ash Wednesday…what is it and should I participate?

This day of repentance, which for many in the Western church marks the beginning of Lent, the 40-day period of fasting before Easter following the example of our Lord who spent 40 days in the desert to fast and pray (Matthew 4:1-11).  It is also known as the “Day of Ashes,” so called because on that day at church the faithful have their foreheads marked with ashes in the shape of a cross.