Latest from ESACelebration and SufferingApril 23, 2018By Sarah Quezada My cell phone rang while I was at work. I picked it up and closed my office door. “My mom called,” my fiancé Billy told me, his voice small and quiet. “She and my dad were denied visas for the wedding.” I sat silently for a moment,…... Read more...A Prayer for ProphetsApril 20, 2018A Booklet of Uncommon Prayer, from which this prayer is taken, is now available electronically! Read more...Thursday Morning SabbathApril 19, 2018By Elrena Evans The year my eldest child started middle school, I looked at our family calendar and realized we were going to have a problem. With five children and multiple schools now in the mix, plus after-school activities, music lessons, Bible study, etc., there was no room left on…... Read more...What We Pray Is What We Believe: A Booklet of Uncommon PrayerApril 18, 2018A Booklet of Uncommon Prayer is now available electronically! To celebrate, we’re reposting Micky ScottBey Jones’s beautiful introduction to these timely and life-giving prayers. By Micky ScottBey Jones Prayer has been a constant in my life. As a little girl, I would write prayers in my diary that began “Dear…... Read more...All Creation Praises GodApril 17, 2018Canticle of the Sun by St. Francis of Assisi Most high, all powerful, all good Lord! All praise is Yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing. To You, alone, Most High, do they belong. No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce Your name. Be praised, my Lord, through all…... Read more...And We Thought We Left Race Behind?April 16, 2018By Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove American Christians in the Obama years half hoped we’d moved beyond race. Yes, the Civil Rights Movement was a moral cause, we told ourselves. But we have moved beyond that now. We took down the Whites Only signs, integrated the schools, and saw a black man rise to…... Read more...DragonfliesApril 13, 2018By Cami Sigler A friend recently asked me about my thoughts on the kingdom of God here in Sierra Leone. “Uh, what?” I thought, drawing a blank and fumbling. So much for all that Bible school training. Desperately I pleaded with my brain, “Think, think, think!” “Dragonflies,” I cautiously posed.…... Read more...Rediscovering the Stranger Parts of the BibleApril 12, 2018By Krish Kandiah Once I received a card from a friend who miswrote a Bible reference. Instead of finding the encouragement that God is merciful to me as one of his own (1 Peter 2:10), I came face-to-face with the uncomfortable declaration that God will punish those who follow the…... Read more...Fill Up Pour OutApril 11, 2018By Marc Havener When I asked a young employee of a community health clinic what motivates her in a career that includes long, exhausting days, surrounded by people with incredible needs, she gave me a look that seemed to wonder how I could not know. “He who waters will himself…... Read more...
