Joe McKeever

Perhaps the most dangerous place on the church campus is the pastor’s counseling office. When the minister is shut up in a tight space with a vulnerable female who confides in him the most personal things of her life, often the two people do something completely natural and end up bonding emotionally. The bonding process…

Frank Laubach, literacy pioneer and beloved brother in Christ, used to call short prayers “prayer arrows.”  Short sentences sent heavenward to praise, give thanks, intercede or summon the Lord’s assistance have a potency all their own. The hypocrites think they will be heard for their “much speaking.” (Oh, I pray for two hours every morning. You…

It’s funny that the Old Testament’s references to envy focus on God’s people looking outward to the world (“sinners”). They were not to envy wrongdoers. The New Testament’s references, by contrast, are directed inwardly, warning believers against envying each other. For those of us who know the inner workings of church life, we fully understand…

The marks on the back door tell of the growth of the children over the years. The clothing in back of the closet the kids can no longer wear speak of the growth of your young’uns. The escalating cost of schoolbooks as the kids move into high school and then into college bear eloquent testimony…

My friend and mentor Dr. James Richardson used to tell of a neighboring pastor who constantly griped about how busy he was.  “That was the laziest preacher on the planet,” said James. In reflecting on over sixty years of service in the Kingdom, I suspect that what sometimes comes across as pastoral laziness is more…

“He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city” (Proverbs 16:32).  And on the other hand, “Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls” (Proverbs 25:28). Christian self-control is a mighty good thing…