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Christmas is a great time to preach the gospel to your family–and to yourself! Reflecting on who Jesus is and why He had to come can keep Christmas from being only about presents and Black Friday and baking more cookies than we could possibly eat (or more than we should eat!).

Olive Tree sent out this offer today. Could be a convenient time for you to add it to your smartphone!

When we take time to read and think through the Old Testament, we see that Jesus is the centerpiece of all Scripture as we discover mysteries, find the Lord, and even find ourselves.

It is unfortunate that so many of us wonder if reading the Old Testament is worth it, feeling like we need Ralphie's Christmas Story decoder pin and a lot of time and effort to make any sense of it. The truth is, when we've put in the time to read and think through it, we will discover mysteries, be transformed, find the Lord, and even find ourselves!

The Masculine Mandate: God’s Calling to Men (2010), is an excellent combination of illustrations, biblical reflection, and insight about what God asks of men. We are to work the gardens where God has put us to labor – cultivating, nurturing, building up, and leading – in our parenting, marriage, workplace, church, and friendships.

"Mommy, can we start a club where we do things that help people?" my son asked a while ago after we'd dropped off some items at the food pantry in Apex. He loves coming along to donate stuff and seeing what they do there....but he's too young to volunteer because they have minimum age requirements. Eventually we settled on the idea of planning several service opportunities and projects where kids can serve alongside adults and the "Disciples Club" was born!

SGC's first contradance was a great success! Many newbies left at the end of the night saying they had no idea how fun contra was, and all are looking forward to our next contra event in January.

Paul’s sentence in Ephesians 1:3-14 is a surprising 257 words, exploring the thought that “God has blessed us” (v3) from the widest angle possible inspiring us all to “the praise of His glory” (v14).

Turns out that duct tape is good for a variety of things—except for sealing ducts. In other words, it is failing in the very task for which it was named. Randy Stinson and Dan Dumas tell us this as they begin their book on manhood and close with this observation: “There’s a lot men can do, but they are struggling to do what they were created for” (p. 3).

Here is some great common sense from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together.