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How to approach the year ahead

My idea of a good start to the new year is a good night’s sleep. I sympathize, however, with the woman who posted that she wasn’t going to stay up to welcome in the new year, but she was going to stay up to make sure the old year left! 2024, with its strange Presidential election, excessive food and fuel costs, storms, floods, and shootings won’t be missed by many people. But what will 2025 bring? No one really has a clue; It could make 2024 look like a cakewalk. That’s the thing about change: There’s always an element of uncertainty, and uncertainty creates fear. Joshua 1 ...

In the ruins of a bombed-out church in Lebanon, there’s now a tiny Christmas tree

DARDGHAYA, Lebanon (AP) — A Christmas tree stands among the fallen stones of what remains of St. George Melkite Catholic Church in southern Lebanon. Once a vibrant community center, the 18th-century church is in ruins after an Israeli airstrike in October. Georges Elia, a 40-year-old municipal worker and churchgoer, took it upon himself to bring some normalcy as the holiday season approached, weeks after a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants. “This year, Christmas is arriving with sadness for us, but we didn’t want it to be a sad one for the ...

Keep on keeping on

I listened more than 40 years ago as Dr. Marshall Leggett listed the tasks expected of a modern-day minister: preacher, teacher, writer and editor, pastoral care provider, administrator, counselor, outreach coordinator, etc. Dr. Leggett warned that group of young preachers and leaders: “You will never go to bed at night with the sweet satisfaction of the day’s work done. There will always be more that could be done and that ought to have been done that was not done simply because of the tyranny of time.” Forty-three years in ministry have convinced me that Dr. Leggett might have ...