“The Year of Friendship: With God, Others, and Self” – part 5 Immediately after college I began serving in a local church setting. My first ministry supervisor became my mentor and my friend. More than four decades later I can happily report that he’s still one of my mentors and

“The Year of Friendship: With God, Others and Self” – part 4 If all of a sudden three days opened up for you next week and you had unlimited resources at your fingertips to pamper yourself, guilt-free, how would you use your time? I know that for one of my

“The Year of Friendship: With God, Others and Self” – part 3 My wife and I recently spent an evening with friends we’ve known for nearly four decades. Such friends are pure gold; rare gems; and a joy to know. We’ve seen each other through the highest highs and the

The Year of Friendship: With God, Others and Self On the heels of our most recent blizzard, the first day post-storm was sunny and beautiful, but the weather people called it a day of “inconsequential sunshine.” I’m sure what they meant was that the sunshine would not affect the temperatures

2018: The Year of… I’m deeply concerned about the diminution of a very important word. It’s been absconded by social media. It’s been destroyed by politics and the media. It’s been lost in our closed-off neighborhoods. It’s absent in many business settings. It’s missing in far too many Christian ministry and