Author: Jon Gauger

It happened unexpectedly.  I had just stepped through the revolving door onto LaSalle Blvd  in downtown Chicago It was then I heard the sound above the rumble of  downtown afternoon traffic. Could it be? The unmistakable strains of “Just as I Am.”  Where was the music coming from?  As I stepped on to the corner of City Hall, I was swept up into a fog of sorts.  Though the music playing was instrumental, I could hear the words in my head. And I looked out at the faces on Randolph Street and wondered…  What if this was a giant urban…

Recently, my wife and I visited a friend who is in prison.   If you've never been to one, it's a sobering and sensory exercise.  There's an unmistakable institutional smell—a fragrant bouquet of floor cleanser, window dust and the faint odor of new paint,  There's the sound of doors buzzing, keys jangling, radios squawking…along with the thud of your own pulse. Faces around the room bear a sad and anxious presence.  You wonder who they have come to visit….what the crime was–and you know that they're wondering the same about you. As we chatted in the official visiting room with my…

Expectations.  And prayer meetings.  If your experience is anything like mine, they rarely go together.  Our prayer meetings are almost entirely predictable.  To the point of….dare I use so harsh a word…. boredom?   Expectations and prayer meetings don’t go together in the same sentence, let alone the same gathering room at church.    In my opinion, this is one of the biggest reasons our prayer meetings are attended by handfuls—rather than “room-fulls.” Sure, we know that Scripture calls us to prayer.  But on a chilly winter night, with a warm supper settling in our gut, there’s little motivation to go out…

The second most important book on your shelf.  What would that be?  When it comes to living a consistent Christian life, a world atlas might just be the second most important book on your shelf. Right next to your Bible, of course. Did my suggestion surprise you?  Give me a moment to explain. You see, there's a problem with our evangelical worldview.  For many of us, there's very little “world” in it.  While on paper, we agree to the urgency of what we call the “Great Commission,” most of us suffer from a great omission.  We simply do not know—or…

Hospitals.  They're no fun when you're sick—but remarkably instructive if you're healthy. Recently, my wife went into the hospital for kidney surgery.  So I spent four nights sleeping out in the waiting room, and countless hours observing.  I've come away with three lessons I'm trying to hang on to. Lesson #1: Everybody is hurting—from something. Hospitals, of course, are filled with the sick, the broken, the bleeding.  There isn't a hallway you walk down that doesn't offer some kind of evidence of intense personal pain.  Yet this is also true of life, itself. Everybody's hurting over something.  The problem for…

The Waldo Canyone Fire.  By the time it was finally put out last July more than 300 Colorado homes were destroyed.  One person was killed, with nearly half a billion dollars in damages.   Like any disaster, it's one thing to see it on the web…or watch it on your flat screen TV.  Quite another to be there. On a recent trip out west, my wife and I decided to visit the ruins.  The scent of burning is still in the air, months after the last of the flames were silenced. What we saw was beyond sobering.  Block after block…

Recently we did a major home remodel and in the midst of the dust, discovered that our house's foundation had cracks in two places.  Damaging water was slowly leaking in.  We did not enjoy paying the price to have the foundations fixed.  But I'm so glad we did!  How wish it were that easy to repair the cracks in the foundation of our Christian culture.  We see those "cracks" when we read study after study showing followers of Jesus divorce nearly as much as followers of the world.  We see them when we read that Christians visit pornography sites with…

Last night I dreamed a horrible dream.  It has haunted me to the point where I can no longer delay sharing it.  Understand that I am not a prophet, nor do I claim to have the biblical gift of prophecy.  But…this is my dream. I was in my own town.  Familiar streets and places.  Yet I was very far away.  It seemed like evening, but I couldn’t really tell. The sky was dark, but not black.  More of a strange gray greenish color. As I walked around, I was surrounded by violence—and its evidence.  Broken things.  Broken relationships.  People using…

Let me just come right out and say it: I believe there’s a problem with prayer meeting. Not in all churches.  But in most churches I’ve been in.  And possibly in your church, as well. The problem is this.  We have allowed our prayer times to become disproportionately dominated by health concerns.  We pray for sick people—as we ought—but to the point of minimizing other critical issues: revival, repentance, the salvation of lost people.  Some of these elements are present in some prayer meetings…but they get a comparatively small piece of the prayer pie. I’m all for praying for the…

And now a few words in defense of Pastors.  Already I can see the raised eyebrows of my listeners.  "What do you mean–in defense of pastors?"  It's my careful observation–over a couple of decades now–that most pastors really COULD use a little defense.  So given the fact that October is Pastor Appreciation Month, I thought I'd try to get you to appreciate your pastor a bit more.  About the only way to do that is to address some common misconceptions people have about pastors.  Misconception #1  Everybody fauns all over the pastor.  He gets all the affirmation in the world.  …