Women of Intelligent Faith

I just finished watching several videos online of speakers from Joel Rosenberg’s Epicenter Conference 2011 in Jerusalem. I highly recommend them!

Our dear friends, Pastor Sammy and his wife Anne, invited me to teach at their new church plant in Kitengela, just outside Nairobi, Kenya. It is a quickly growing church. The building already has a roof!   It was an amazing three days! I thank God for the opportunity to teach biblical peacemaking at a three-day women’s conference in Kitengela, Kenya. While the drive there and back each day was an enormous challenge (taking between 2-3 hours to drive there and then about 2 hours back—EACH DAY!), it was a blessing to teach conflict resolution to eager learners. The week after the conference, Anne told me that the women from the conference were already applying the peacemaking skills they learned. Apparently two women who attended the conference were in conflict with other, but they reconciled their differences!   Others reported reconciling with their neighbors and co-workers. What a privilege to pass along what I have learned. May God be glorified! 

An amazing thing happened when I went to Israel for the first time recently. I fell in love with the people. It is true that before I left for Israel I already had a love for them in my heart. But I didn’t really know how deep that love was until I spent time in Israel among the people. Our first day in Israel, while we were visiting Old Jerusalem, I witnessed the deep cultural tensions so present in the land. On our way to visit the Western Wall, we walked through the narrow city streets and perused the colorful vendor shops. There I observed a hostile confrontation between a Sabra (native Jewish person) and an Arab. Perhaps the gold Star of David charm hanging from the Sabra’s necklace provoked the initial comment from the Arab. Another Arab joined in with some verbal jabs. Sensing the clash, I quietly moved away from the conflict. Wisely, the Sabra held his tongue and slowly moved away from the area, never taking his eyes off the aggressors. There was no fear in his eyes, onl...

          The question echoed in my mind. A friend in my Christian writer’s group went to Israel earlier this year and she relayed this story. While at the airport on her way to the Holy Land, a couple asked her, “Do you love the land? Or do you love the people?” Surprised by the question, my friend replied that she loved the people, of course. Sometimes loving is easier said than done.           Why do I love Israel? It is different from Kenya and India--it is not third world. (Although approximately 25% of the Israelis currently live below the poverty line.) Despite Israel’s rich Holy Land heritage, to some it seems even more secular than America, spiritually poor. It is hard to imagine a country that exists against all odds, due to faith, miracles, and God’s promises, and yet so many people there do not know the one true living God. Less than 1/10 of 1% of Israeli Jews believe in Y’shua, Jesus....

Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.” Matthew 5:9 Conflict is all around us. Turn on the news and we see it locally, nationally, and globally. As we examine our own relationships with our families, our friends, our neighbors, and even our brothers and sisters in Christ, we find occasional, and sometimes constant, conflict. Why so much conflict in the world? Jesus warned us that life on this side of eternity would not be perfect. He said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 So how are we supposed to deal with conflict? Biblically, of course. But how many of us really know how to do that? Ken Sande wrote an incredibly popular and practical book called The Peace Maker , a tool used around the world to help individuals, families, churches, ministry and business leaders resolve conflict. Ken “gives practical biblical guidance for conflict resolution that takes you beyond resolving con...

Islamic leaders have a constitutional right to build the mosque at Ground Zero because of "religious freedom," but they should be sensitive to the complaints of others and not build it. This sentiment is frequently repeated in the news by well-meaning conservatives. The question is, do they really have a constitutional right to build it? Not if it is financed by terrorists or those bent on destroying America--that would be treason. There is no constitutional protection for treason. Bryan Fischer recently wrote an interesting article for American Family Association worth pondering, arguing against 1st Amendment protection for building the mosque near Ground Zero. Fischer wrote, "Our enemy is authentic Islam and our enemies are devout Muslims who actually believe in their holy scripture and are determined to follow the sacred teachings of their god. They are our enemies for the simple reason that their god commands them to kill us. ..All this blather about religious li...

Do you know statistics show that a high percentage of students walk away from their Christian faith in college? Christians need to understand that the truth of God’s word applies to all of life. They need to be able to discern truth from error, whether sitting in a university classroom or watching the evening news. We need to protect Christian youth from deception by anti-Christian worldviews. We need to train up Christian leaders who can actively champion the truth of Christianity in a culture of relativism, paganism, hedonism and confusion. This fall in Orange County, CA, I will begin teaching a two-semester High School worldview and apologetics class, Understanding the Times , a Summit Ministries curriculum endorsed by Dr. James Dobson, the late Dr. James Kennedy, Josh McDowell, Norman Geisler, and Chuck Colson. This curriculum helps students clearly understand the tenets of the Christian worldview and how they compare and contrast with other leading worldviews of to...