Author: Chris Taff

The Dying Ember There’s an old story about a pastor who went to visit a man who had quietly stopped coming to church. The two of them sat in front of the fireplace without saying much. After a while, the pastor picked up the tongs, pulled one glowing coal out of the fire, and set…

The Story A few years ago I was in the back of a sanctuary during a Wednesday night rehearsal, finishing up a sound system we had just installed. The band was running through Sunday’s set. The lights were dialed in, the haze was drifting across the stage, and the mix sounded incredible. By every technical…

A lot of us are carrying something we never agreed to pick up. Maybe it was a letter. Maybe a conversation that turned into a lecture. Maybe years of small comments that added up to a verdict about who you are. And here is the part that makes it cut so deep. Often it did…

Last week I read an open letter that stopped me in my tracks. It was written by Jeff Mullen, a pastor emeritus who spent thirty years shepherding a congregation, and it was addressed to Texas State Representative James Talarico. Talarico speaks often and publicly about his Christian faith. He is studying for a Master of…

Picture a two-lane highway in East Texas after a night of hard rain. Around midnight the creek rises and takes out a section of a low bridge. A man driving home sees it just in time and stops a few feet short of the edge. He knows exactly what that water can do. Years ago,…

The road is dusty and the sun is already hot. A Jewish farmer is walking home with his tools on his shoulder when a Roman soldier steps into his path, drops a heavy pack at his feet, and points down the road. No please. No explanation. Roman law says the soldier can make any civilian…

The road is dusty and the sun is already hot. A Jewish farmer is walking home with his tools on his shoulder when a Roman soldier steps into his path, drops a heavy pack at his feet, and points down the road. No please. No explanation. Roman law says the soldier can make any civilian…

This week in Panama City, Florida, the staff at a federal fisheries lab heard a knock at the front door. When they went to look, it was a brown pelican, tapping its beak against the glass. WSB-TV The bird was in trouble. It had fishing line wound around its wing, a hook buried deep, and…

I used to check my phone before my feet hit the floor. Email, weather, news, whatever notification had stacked up overnight. By the time I sat down with my coffee, I had already handed the first fifteen minutes of my day to other people’s urgency. I was awake, but I was not ready. There is…

The Story Same alarm. Same drive. Same parking spot. Same problems waiting at the same desk. Somewhere along the way the days stopped feeling like days and started feeling like one long loop I couldn’t get out of. There’s an old movie where a man wakes up to the same morning over and over again.…