Author: Chris Taff

For years there have been two empty chairs in my life. One belongs to my older sister, one to my younger. I don’t remember the last thing any of us said to each other, but I remember the feeling that came after — the quiet certainty that I was done. Their choices, their lifestyles, the…

After work yesterday I stopped by to see one of my oldest and best friends. We sat and talked, and somewhere in the conversation we got honest about something we’d both noticed — how a lot of folks these days seem to say hi and then have an excuse to leave. A quick wave, a…

When I was still splicing fiber for a living, I worked alongside a guy named Ray who had about thirty years on me. First week on the job, I was fumbling with a fusion splicer, sweating through my shirt, sure I was about to snap another fiber and set us back an hour. Ray could’ve…

A few years back I bought a cheap water filter for the tap in my kitchen. It worked fine for a while, but I got lazy and never changed the cartridge. Months went by. The water still looked clear coming out of the faucet, so I figured everything was okay. Then one morning I actually…

There was a season when my go-to answer for everything was “I’m fine.” Somebody at church would ask how I was doing, and out it came before I even thought about it. The truth was more complicated. There was anger that showed up faster than it should have, a low hum of fear about being…

Paul is writing to a church in a city full of people who worshiped differently than they did, spoke differently, lived differently. And he tells them something that must have sounded strange: the people across the street are not your enemy. The war you’re actually in is deeper than that. It’s against evil itself —…

In the spring of 1855, a Sunday school teacher named Edward Kimball worked up the nerve to walk into a Boston shoe store. One of the boys from his class worked there in the back, wrapping shoes and stocking shelves — a rough, uneducated kid with almost no interest in church. Kimball nearly talked himself…

You Still Matter to God A few years ago I watched a man wander into the back of a church during a Christmas service. He didn’t sing. He didn’t bow his head. When it came time to pray, he stood with his arms crossed, looking like he was ready to leave the second it was…