This is a continuation of a series of articles leading up to the third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization that begins in Cape Town South Africa on October 15.  Today’s post is a continuation of the last as we move from the Fall to Redemption. Find the whole series to date here.

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Like many kids, young and old, I used to enjoy playing with dominos.  Not playing the game, you understand, but playing with the tiles.  Setting them up in long chains, and when all was ready, carefully knocking the first one over.  If all went according to plan, each domino would knock the next one in the line, and one by one, all would fall over.  We used that image above to describe the series of relationships shattered by Adam and Eve’s disobedience.  As we think of how they are restored by redemption through Jesus, the same domino imagery is useful again.  As the domino tiles fall, each pushes on the next, and eventually all are lying flat.  But if you want to pick them up, you have to start with the first one that fell over, not with the last one. They have to be set up in the order in which they fell. The same is true as we begin to restore relationships broken by sin. Read more »

Springtime flowers (Flickr - Creative Commons License)

These thoughts were originally written for a church devotional for Park Street Church in Boston, and comprised the main text of my newsletter to Care of Creation ministry partners last week.  They seemed worth preserving here as well.

“I am making everything new!” Rev. 21:5

It is not a coincidence that Easter occurs in the springtime.

Spring is exciting, especially for those of us who live in the frozen north, as we do in Wisconsin. Returning to our house recently, my wife and I pause and glance over our flower beds as we do often at this time of year. This time she gives a little cry of joy: Hidden beneath dead leaves and other leftovers from winter isa spot of green. As we bend to look, we see another and then another: the first signs of resurrection. Frozen in below-zero soil just a few weeks ago, the flowers are coming back to life. Read more »