It’s a striking thing to me that our lives are based on what happened two thousand years ago. One event, culminating in a myriad of other events, has wrecked us today. We have staked all we have on that event, and that story. Our very eternity has been altered because of it. Yet what is so ...
One thing about conversations with four-year-olds is that you never know how they will go. They are generally guaranteed to be interesting, and likely amusing. I’ve found this particularly to be the case regarding prayer, at least with our son, Timothy. Timothy has no clue of what ...
It was 8 am last Saturday morning, and the crowd was gathering. It was moving day at the Swann home and our Hope family was coming out. Shortly there were men and women everywhere, moving and cleaning and blessing us in every way. By noon the work was done, with the world’s greatest moving ...
The kids and I have a game that we love to play. It’s called the “For God’s Glory” game. It’s not really a game, at its root, but they enjoy it like it’s a game. It goes something like this: Me: “Allison, why do we eat?” Allison: “For ...
A thirst for success seems to hound all of us. We all want our lives and efforts to count. We want to be deemed successful, for success gives us worth. The worth of a church is viewed in the same light. It’s all found in the success that a church attains, presuming that that success will be ...
I love the Olympics. I’m crazy about them, actually. Shauna joins me in that craze, and every four years, we clamor around the TV and soak up every minute we can. Our lives are almost divided into four year segments. There were the 2000 Olympics, also known as the San Francisco students, ...
A. W. Tozer once wrote, “The world is perishing for lack of the knowledge of God and the church is famishing for want of His presence.” The former we claim to know, the latter we fail to grasp. Both have huge implications for the way in which we live. And to a significant degree, the ...
It’s 8:30 pm on Saturday night and my heart and body aren’t in the same place. The former is at home in Houston, hanging out with my family watching the Olympics. The latter is at DFW, enduring a grueling flight delay. To sweeten the deal, I grab a fruit parfait (don’t judge me) ...
This past week, I was in Dallas for some training and meetings. After I finished, my airport shuttle arrived and I prepared to board. As I did so, two things became immediately clear to me. One was that I had the shuttle all to myself. The second was that as my driver was apparently in a very bad ...
“Dad?” It was the voice of Timothy, our four-year-old, speaking just before we headed to church one Sunday. “Dad, I love Hope Church. I just want to go there and live there forever!” There are words that our kids say that perplex us, confuse us, or maybe even drive ...
