Artios Magazine Everyday Christians. Everyday Leadership.

Yes Alex* wore the pain and shame of same-sex attraction on his face as he shared with me how many years he had cried out for God to simply takes those desires away. Aware of the stigma, it wasn’t something he felt he could talk about in the church, and ultimately, it became easier for Alex to embrace the acceptance ...

As my sighs of longing join in the requiem for a groaning earth, I know I’m not alone. Together, our sighs compose a refrain of a Church who wants our faith to be influential in our culture. Taking in the world around me, I can’t help but dream of being a conduit of healing and change. I see things that ...

Alone with the unknown creature, the blind man caressed its skin, memorizing each wrinkle and marveling at the gentle strength of the tall, snakelike animal. “Come! Come see this animal! I’ve never met anything like it!” he called to his friend as he backed away to give the friend a turn. The friend, also blind, approached the creature from a ...

Sabbath. It’s what “Hakuna Matata” wishes it could really be. No worrying. About anything. For all eternity. And with thousands of years of history it certainly “ain’t no passin’ craze.” It’s why the Friday sunset triggers a welcomed off-switch from the crazy busyness of my life.  No laundry, vacuuming, or making beds. Or fretting about finances. Or checking my work email. Or wiping myself out in the ...

Few things are worth packing four children under the age of 10 into a vehicle and driving 2,058 miles across the country…and then back. Amazingly, for my family, four riveting days of  – wait for it – church business meetings happens to be one of them. We have this belief that church business meetings are unique – and valuable – experiences of ...

Growing up, we have grand dreams of adulthood. A vision of being able to fill our days with things that bring us joy and fulfillment while allowing us to make a difference. Embracing a calling. And then… Well, let’s just say that #adulting is an adequate description of the shock of some of the realities of adulthood. Dishes pile up. ...

Our eyes would connect at our church service each week as we sought one another out to embrace. Her eyes, tired from the failing health associated with a long-life-well-lived – and mine, exhausted from a lack of sleep well-known to mothers of four young children. Unrelated except through the blood of Christ, she let me call her Grandma Marybell, and ...

The millennium had barely turned when I first became acquainted with the labels that would define my generational identity. As researchers looked at the culture that had shaped us and hypothesized about how we would collectively respond to and shape our environments as we grew into adulthood, I found myself both fascinated and enthralled by what I read. We were called ...

A few times each week, I make an elaborate plan to sabotage myself. The assassination of my own character is often an inevitable result. I call it a to-do list. Part written, part mental, it becomes the mighty standard of all measuring sticks. After all, if achieving a goal is intricately tied to our capacity to 1) break a long-term goal into a short ...

For years, the word “theology” made my spiritual stomach churn. It was like putting the Bible on a lab table to be dissected like a dead, formaldehyde soaked frog, its cells being torn apart until they no longer resembled the organs and ligaments that had once made the frog bound with life. Then I transferred to a Christian university. And what was the very first ...