I love Oliver Twist. It's a great story about confronting a system that had grown inhuman because of an attempt to reduce persons to mere cogs in a machine. Ah the joys of the Industrial Revolution. Our hero, Oliver, does what he wasn't "suppose" to do; he asks for "more" and that one request starts…
Fr. Barnabas Powell
Two years ago we started Faith Encouraged Ministries to start organizing our media work in a way that would be both effective and useful. We applied for and received non-profit status from the IRS so any donations would be tax deductible for our partners and we started using what we had:
Weekly Homilies
A Monday through Friday…
The young man bristled under his father's rules and regulations. He hated knowing that, while he was under age and under his dad's roof, he had to buckle down and do what he was told. He daydreamed of one day being free of this harsh regiment. As he grew older, his impatience to be "free"…
It's simply unavoidable. C.S. Lewis said it best: "Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance, the only thing it cannot be is moderately important." So true! You see, the Christian Faith isn't merely a set of moral teachings. All religious systems have that, and most of them are fairly…
Frankly I was suspicious of his motives. He seemed friendly, but have you ever had that feeling that someone was being nice to you just to take advantage of you? Well, that's exactly how I felt: like he was just waiting to catch me in saying something so he could use it against me. Of…
Did you know it was #Giving Tuesday today? Yep, it is.
This is an effort by hundreds of nonprofits and other organizations to remind us all that this season isn't only about getting, but primarily about GIVING.
On this #Giving Tuesday, please consider how you will invest in ministries and organizations that help those who cannot…
Do you know what a dichotomy is? Exactly, it is when we set in stone what appears to be two opposites. You know, like good and bad, healthy and unhealthy, up and down, you get the idea.
But there are some dichotomies that are false. We separate what isn't suppose to be separated. In fact, in…
They say that "familiarity breeds contempt" but I'm not so sure. True, we do get to know people at their best AND their worst when we spend a lot of time with them. Everytime someone compliments me on this or that act, I'm always reminded that most of the time people outside my immediate family…
And they're off! The sales, the markdowns, the deals, all conspiring to get us to spend, spend, spend. The competition is hot. The deals are unrepeatable. Knock that person ahead of you down. Reach across that lady's grasp. Get here first! Fight, fight, fight!
No thanks. Black Friday sales and the whole hoopla associated with it…
I hated what was coming and, what made it worse was, it was unavoidable. It was a confrontation with a supervisor that had been building for some time, and it wasn't going to be pretty. As he and I sat in the office of the consultant that the company had brought in to help several…