City Lights

CITY LIGHTS & CHRISTMAS The name of this newsletter has been “City Lights” for decades. It’s based on Matthew 5:14–16: “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and...

          We describe the mission of our church this way: “To make, mature, and multiply disciples of Jesus Christ.” We’ve known other churches who use this as their mission statement, and we thought it was a good summary of Matthew 28:18–20: “And Jesus came and said...

“Why is the sky blue?” The question popped into my head one morning as I was looking at it through my window. I wasn’t thinking about the science of refracted light that affect the sun’s rays racing through the earth’s atmosphere, but about why God made the sky like...

How does God make himself known? Our triune God, being infinite and everywhere-present, is invisible—and I’ve become more comfortable with this reality over the years. I think there were times when it used to trouble me, the question, Why doesn’t God show himself? I...

“I see dead people.” It’s just a quote from a famous movie; it’s not a common phenomenon, and not, I trust, something any of us would like to experience—hallucinations of the walking dead. Creepy! And yet, in a way, I ought to see more dead people. At least, I ought...

I sat next to a 16-year-old boy wearing a baggy T-Shirt that said “BLESSED” in gaudy lettering. The image on the shirt gave the sense: two hands pressed together in prayer, between them a long-stemmed rose and a stack of hundred-dollar bills. Pleasure and...