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Evangelicals, High End Hearing Loss, and the Art of Listening to Women

Every Friday, I meet my grandpa for lunch at a café near my work and his favorite bowling alley. It is a tiny, old school café with nary a soft surface to be found, and I sometimes feel self-conscious about the volume of my voice in those confines. The regulars sitting five tables away could […]

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The Best Things to Give Up for Lent

So, what are you giving up for Lent? Not sure yet? I have a few suggestions. Growing up, my family didn’t celebrate Lent. It wasn’t part of our faith tradition. But the older I get, the more I think Lent is a good idea—and not just because it provides us with a religious-sounding excuse to […]

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Hagar, the Disenfranchised, and the God who Sees

(Right click on the audio file and “save as” to download it to your device.) Hagar’s story is really hard to read. There’s so much tragedy, and so much injustice, much of it perpetrated by people who were supposed to be followers of God. But it’s also an important story, because it shows that God cares about the […]

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Exciting News from Tanzania!

I got more exciting news about the Called Out curriculum that I wrote today! Eliya and Consoler, who serve in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, shared that Called Out, CBE’s youth curriculum, is being considered for public secondary schools… Tanzania’s Youth Patron, who supervises children’s Christian education, recommended Called Out to their multi-denominational Christian Council. Soon, they will vote […]

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When God is Not Your Enemy

Sometimes, when there’s a lot to be done and life seems overwhelming, I wonder if the work I am putting in is worth the cost (which, I will not lie, is high at times). And then, by the grace of God, I get emails quoting teenage girls from East Africa: “Ever since, I knew that […]

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“Church, someone is coming after our family.”

I don’t have nightmares often, but last night I woke up with a start, knowing there was no way I was going back to sleep for a while. I grabbed my laptop and decided I’d catch up on what was happening with my online friends, since I’d spent the past two days in cars or […]

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I’m Stupid About Racism. Are You?

I have a confession to make. I am stupid about racism. I will blame my unusual childhood. I lived in an almost entirely white community (the same one I live in now, in fact) until I was 7. The only black people I knew were my uncle and cousin. Then my family moved to Liberia, […]

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Who is Standing Up for Women? An Exercise in Looking for the Helpers.

Last night was one of those nights when it feels hard to breathe; when you want to rage and cry and fight and scream and sob. Nothing was wrong in my little circle, but make no mistake, things were, and are, very, very wrong. For the past week my newsfeeds have been lit up with […]

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In Remembrance of Maya Angelou

Maya Angelou has died at the age of 86, and this world has lost a beautiful, courageous soul. But not forever. Here she is in her own words: You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may tread me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I’ll rise. Thanks […]

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#YesAllWomen. The girl who cried wolf, and other myths.

The #YesAllWomen hashtag, where women share their stories about the everyday harassment they endure and worse, is trending on Twitter. You should absolutely check it out. This is a repost from 2011, minus the first paragraph referencing an old news event. Sexual harassment is very, very real, and Christians need to find ways to deal […]

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Jesus, Paul, and Women in the New Testament: The Women In Ministry Sermon Series.

How did Jesus view women, and just how radical was his treatment of them in his society? What did it mean that Mary “sat at Jesus’ feet,” and what’s with those women who traveled with Jesus and the Twelve? Who was Junia, what did Phoebe have to do with the Book of Romans, and was Priscilla […]

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In the Beginning: Oneness, Equality, and Women in the Old Testament: The Women in Ministry Sermon Series

My friend James preached a great sermon this past week about God’s original plan in creating humans male and female (synopsis: so they could experience oneness and community, not so the male would have someone to help him get his chores done), talked about some of the misunderstandings of the first three chapters of Genesis […]

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Are you digging wells or building fences? The women in ministry sermon series

Yay! The new sermon about women in ministry is up, and you can listen by clicking here. Here’s what Pastor Darrell has to say about this message: This week we start our sermon series “Called and Gifted – In It Together” by looking at John 4:1-42.  The story of Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman […]

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Women in Ministry Sermon Series: The 1 Timothy 2:12 “Silence” Passage

My church, Mission Covenant Church, has just started a six-week sermon series on women in ministry titled “Called and Gifted.” For the next month and a half, we will be digging into the Bible to see what it says about women (and men!) working together for the kingdom, taking the whole council of scripture into […]

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Going to Jesus Outside the Camp

This post was originally published in March 2009. I'm not a big fan of taking Bible verses (or chapters or books for that matter) out of context, but every once in a while I come across a snippet of scripture that just steals my breath away. Today's was from Hebrews 13:13, in the New Century […]

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