John Sumwalt News Today

My colleague Martin Theilin, a retired preacher like me, recently heard from a reader of his blog about a mean spirit that has come to pervade some of our churches.

I was 16 years old in August 1967. I was the sophomore class president and sectional wrestling champion; I was still basking in the afterglow of participating in the state

Our pastor is going to be on vacation May 5 so he has asked me to come off the bench and pinch hit. The assigned topic is “I Believe in

Sometimes we experience God’s presence in ordinary, everyday events like the laughter of a child or an awe-inspiring sunset. And sometimes God is experienced in unexpected life-altering events. Richard “Rick”

It happened 20 years ago, a few days after the death of Eli, our first beloved West Highland Terrier. We were missing him fiercely as we were putting away dog

Phillip Hasheider is a retired Wisconsin beef farmer and an award-winning author. He was dead for six minutes and came back to tell about it. His “Six Minutes in Eternity”

Baptism Promises

The first time I saw one of the “He Gets Us” Jesus ads during the Super Bowl a year ago I sat up and said to my wife, Jo, “This

What would Jesus say to Taylor Swift? Yes, that’s a silly question. And yet since the pop singer was chosen as Time Magazine’s person of the year, and started dating

A week after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, country singer Toby Keith – who died Feb. 5 – wrote a patriotic ballad titled “Courtesy of the Red, White and