His dark shadow looms in the distance—heart pounding with trepidation and grief. He saw in the sacred pages that something like this would happen. So he made the proper plans. Now he must step from the shadows, stand, and speak.

His simple but significant act is recorded in all four of the gospels. Yet somehow we often overlook him during Passion Week.

The day after Easter, our beloved Golden Retriever Calvin, only seven years old (that's mid-life in dog years) had to be put to sleep because of cancer that had been sucking the life out of him. When our son and his wife moved from Texas to California, they were forced to leave him behind because their housing does not allow dogs, and Calvin became my husband's dog.

A friend of mine recently told me of the change in her work environment that happened with the addition of one female co-worker. Just one. Female. Assistant. What was once a team-oriented, respect-and-support-each-other work climate went toxic—because of the influence of one woman. Ms. Toxic’s continual gossiping about the other women and backbiting created “toxic shock” in a matter of 3-4 weeks! How does that happen?

How can the church be a positive presence in the culture? How did it lose its place? How can it come again to be a place where its influence can be positively felt? That is the goal of Greg Forster’s new book, Joy for the World.

Forster is Program Director at the Kern Family Foundation and a senior fellow at the Friedman Foundation for Educational choice. He is a political scientist with a degree from Yale University and is one of those thoughtful believers wrestling with how the church should function in a diverse culture.

As we prepare for Resurrection Sunday, what do you believe?  

My earliest memories of Easter include new church dresses with hats and lots of yellow ribbons, intense searches for plastic eggs with the rare $2 bill stuffed inside, marshmallow peeps (which I never liked) and loads of Cadbury chocolate, complete with the resulting stomach-ache. The day came and went with a little bit of anticipation, but nominal impact on my day-to-day life.

As I grew up, the cognitive recognition that Easter celebrated something important, something critical, something that all of reality hinges upon, was not lost on me. However, the disconnect between head and heart can sometimes keep the significance of an event at a distance. I would reflect on its importance for a moment, perhaps at a Sunday service, but its formative impact quickly lost its potential on me as I turned my attention to the week and people and tasks ahead.

Until last year.

One way to keep our fingers on the pulse of the people we teach is to know what they're hearing and watching. Here are some top tens for Christians:

Top Ten Christian Movies (by profit)

10       Jonah: A VeggieTales Movie

 9          God’s Not Dead

Leadership is broken because leaders are unbroken

The demise of Solomon should scare us out of our complacency and drive us to our knees.  Once the wisest man on earth, then one of the most idolatrous men in the world, and finally a murderous man, Solomon shows us the role of the heart in leaders.  How did this come about?  One thing you must understand:  Solomon allowed his heart to outgrow his altar, as he became a victim of the principle of except...

Could this happen to us?

Holy week has commenced and Resurrection Sunday draws near. And, if you read blogs, my guess is that you also use other forms of social media and are probably drowning in Easter activities via Pinterest, Facebook, etc.

I mean did you know you can even make a tomb out of a donut and an Oreo? Yeah, neither did I until everyone posted it on Pinterest.

These activities bring fun and joy, but if you only do one Easter activity with your family this year, I challenge you to make it a gospel devotional based on 1 Corinthians 15.