From time to time a well-known Christian leader either steps down or is removed from office because of some flagrant immorality or some other scandalous sin. But other times, as in the case of John Piper last year, a minister takes a leave of absence for a time to sort things out, either personal things or ministry things. It is a leave of absence, not a resignation. It is a time-out to rethink how everyone is doing, off camera. For someone with an internationally known ministry, I can easily imagine that this could be a tremendous help. A minister of a small to mid-size church might be able to take a week off and regroup; but when you are the head of a huge ministry, things go public in a big way. It just comes with the territory.
Recently, C.J. Mahaney has stepped down from his position as head of Sovereign Grace Ministries in order to sort out some misunderstandings, headbonks, and whatnot. I am not going to address the particulars here, because, frankly, I don’t know what they are, and that’s not my point in writing.
A strange thing happens when a minister comes under fire. All the discontents from the past ten or twenty years Continue reading ‘Sociological Events’
In honor of our country’s independence, we did our patriotic duty and made pies and homemade ice cream. The Merkle girls each made a pie, and here they are in front of their masterpieces: Jemma with her apple pie, Hero with strawberry, and Bel with her lattice strawberry-rhubarb. They were fantastic!
Rachel also made pies, just so we would be sure to have more than plenty, and her kids all helped in meaningful ways, don’t you know? Here’s the complete lineup:
And I especially like this patriotic picture below. Even the ice is American!
I can’t help it. Even though I put up pictures of my roses every summer, I can’t resist showing you again. They are nuts!
Who needs fireworks when you’ve got these?? (Okay, so my grandkids for one, or rather fifteen.) Have a happy Fourth of July!
When we visited Prague in May, the first thing we did was hike up to the castle. On the way up those countless flights of stairs, we passed this little stair-side bakery, and then, being wise tourists, we stopped, backed up, and bought ourselves these little delicacies.
Continue reading ‘Trdelnik’
Just a reminder that come September, we will be having our very first Femina conference, and we’ve titled it ”Dangerous Women.” We will have talks on what it means to be dangerous, and what it looks like for wives, moms, daughters, and unmarried women. All of us Femina girls will be speaking: Bekah will speak to wives, Rachel will speak to moms, Heather will speak about being unmarried, and I will give the first kick-off talk to kick us off.
We’d love to have you all come! What a fun oppportunity it would be to meet you all and for you all to meet one another, face to face! Idaho is a ways out of the way, we know. But we hope you’ll think it was well worth the trip!
Here in Atlanta at the ACCS conference, Doug was showing off his cool and dandy iPhone case that I bought him. I took full credit for it and mentioned another cool techy gift which I bought him for Father’s Day (but gave him early). So this nice man suggested I put up a post for the wives called “Cool Techy Gifts for Father’s Day” (or something like that). Which I thought was a great idea. So here’s the list. Kind of short. But here’s a warning first: If you are reading this, and you are a dad, don’t read any further. You might spoil your own Father’s Day surprise. This post is for the gift-givers only.
1. The iPhone case. You can recharge the case itself, so when the phone runs out of charge, there’s still another load waiting in the case. Amazing, huh?
2. I don’t know what this one is called, but I bought it at Kinkos. It looks like a coffee cup, so it fits in the coffee cup holder in your car and plugs into the lighter. On Continue reading ‘Cool and Techy Father’s Day Gift Ideas’
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