The psalmist lifts a painful voice to heaven: "How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?" - Psalm 13:1 A typical biblical lament by one who feels forgotten by God. If I were the psalmist, I would add a companion cry: "How long, Lord, will the preacher go on without saying anything worth listening to?" I'm a fan of good preaching, preaching that digs up some gem of the Gospel from the soil of human experience and applies it in a way that inspires people to rise up and live their faith. You don't hear much of this preaching these days. [READ MORE]

The word "but" is an ugly word. In fact, it is such a terrible word that the style book published by Bloomberg's Business Week magazine prohibits the use of the word “but” in any of its articles. Bloomberg has a 361-page style manual for their writers. It’s called “The Bloomberg Way”, and one of the rules in this 361-page writer’s guide goes something like this: “Thou shalt not ever use the word ‘but’ in an article.” Why? Well, the explanation for this rule is that the word “but” forces readers to deal with conflicting ideas in the same sentence. And that [READ MORE]