Circuit Writer

My column for the March 20 – March 26, 2011 edition of The Tahlequah Christian.

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It turns out that this late Lenten Season is making for a very busy time of the year – and busy can mean a lot of excitement. This year we are definitely living up to that billing, and I want to take a moment to fill you in on what’s going on.

Aside from our Lenten outreach campaign to raise money for our local ministry partners (a campaign that is right on track, by the way – we’ll be giving you a full update this coming Sunday!) continue reading…

Pastor’s column from The Tahlequah Christian for the weeks of June 6 -  June 19.

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This past Sunday I raised the question as to why hunger in the world is so rampant when our own food supplies here at home seem so abundant. It occurred to me that it might be a good time to follow up on that sermon with some information, so I turned to the United Nations World Food Program and found some pretty striking information. Did you know …

• · that roughly 1 in 6 people doesn’t receive enough food? (1.02 billion)
• · that this number rose by 75 million in 2007 & another 40 million in 2008 due to the rising cost of food?
• · that 65% of the world’s hungry live in 7 countries? (India, China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, & Ethiopia)
• · that Vitamin A deficiency due to malnutrition kills a million infants a year?
• · that the World Food Program dewormed 10 million children in 2007? (Yes, that’s the same type of deworming we do for our pets.)

continue reading…

Here’s my most recent article for The Tahlequah Christian for the week of February 14-20.

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In case you missed it in worship this past Sunday, we challenged each and every one of you to save a life – and it’s not as difficult as it sounds. In just 14 days, you can make a difference by helping provide a lifetime of clean water for a person who would otherwise take his or her chances with contaminated mud holes and unsafe streams. continue reading…

Now that the metaphorical dust is settling on the disaster that has befallen Haiti, it is the time to begin remembering what we are already forgetting.  Distracted by the commentary and wrangling surrounding the State of the Union Address, we’ve lost track of the tragedy of an estimated 150,000 dead (the U.N. confirming 111,481 based on bodies recovered as of January 24).  While there is no doubt that we should acknowledge the economic problems here in our country, it would be a failure of nerve and moral courage to shift our focus inward upon ourselves on account of an arbitrary requirement that the President “shall from time to time give to Congress information of the State of the Union.”  (Article II, Section 3, U.S. Constitution)

I’ve previously written concerning the real nature of Haiti’s “curse” and Christian responsibility in the wake of this disaster, but it’s time for us to move beyond talk and take action.  For everyone who has already become involved, sending recovery kits and making financial contributions, I thank you and commend your actions.  However, as Richard Kim points out, our charity simply isn’t good enough: continue reading…

In the midst of the storm surrounding Pat Robertson and his comments about the “curse” upon Haiti, we might have missed the other imposition of the language of “curse” on that country.  In a statement on Thursday afternoon, French President Nicolas Sarkozy called for an international conference on the question of reconstruction aid for Haiti after associating the plight of country with a more ambiguous curse:

From this catastrophe, which follows so many others, we should make sure that it is a chance to get Haiti once and for all out of the curse it seems to have been stuck with for such a long time.

If not Pat Robertson’s absurd theological stretches, then what exactly is this “curse” that haunts Haiti? continue reading…