Author: John W. Crowder
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Peacemaker or Peacekeeper? The Difference Is Everything
Almost every pastor knows this scenario. Two church members who haven’t spoken in months, sitting in the same room, both of them loving Jesus, both of them loving the church, and both of them absolutely certain the other one is in the wrong. It’s tempting, in a moment like that, to just smooth things over.…
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Anger Road is a Toll Road
Anyone who has driven one of the newer toll roads knows how it works. There is no attendant waving you through, no booth where you hand over a few coins and go on your way. There is just a camera overhead, and the charges keep adding up the farther you drive, whether you are watching…
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Decisions Seem Easy When They’re Not Yours to Make
By John W. Crowder Difficult decisions always seem easy to those who have no responsibility for them. There is a certain kind of confidence that comes from standing outside a decision. You can see it in the coworker who knows exactly what he’d do if he were the boss, the fan who knows exactly which…
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Peace is a Person
I have never met a farmer who could make it rain. I have known a few who could read the sky better than the weatherman, who could smell moisture in the air a day before the first drop fell, but not one of them could reach up and produce rain by sheer will. Rain is…
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Why Peace Feels Impossible
We live in a culture that honors fighting, respects confrontation, and encourages arguing. It seems like everyone is always mad! Peace seems impossible because it is not something that comes naturally to us. And that is exactly the problem Paul is naming in Romans 12. Beginning at verse 14, he gives a list of hard…
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Full Books, Heavy Hearts
When we collect our hurts like emotional trading stamps. If you grew up in this part of Texas before 1980, you probably remember S&H Green Stamps. Every time you checked out at the grocery store the cashier would count out a strip of little green stamps based on how much you spent. You’d take them…
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When You Get Mad at Your Pastor
It happens more often than we like to admit. The pastor says something in a sermon that rubs us the wrong way, makes a decision we don’t like, or makes a comment in casual conversation that comes across as less than pastoral. How do we respond? Too often, people get angry and react in unhelpful…
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Do Not Journey Alone
The question worth wrestling with is not whether you need someone like this in your life. You do.