During tax season, a time when low-income families  and individuals should be receiving their well-deserved tax returns, many sub-par tax preparers set up shop to take advantage of these customers with negligent tax returns and high rates. Tax preparers have been known to charge as much as $500 to file a straightforward return—exploiting a community […]

This devotional guide looks at the faithful, responsive lives of Zechariah, Elizabeth, Joseph, Mary, and John the Baptizer. Each day’s devotional includes a Scripture passage, a reflection, questions to ponder, and a prayer for individual use or sharing with a friend or small group. After those days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months […]

How does your daily experience of work offer the opportunity to appreciate your own skills, talents and gifts? My job is never the same day to day, but as a health coach I can always count on the opportunity to be blessed by people’s histories and the faith stories they share with me. My job […]

With an undergraduate degree from the University of Georgia in religion and an MDiv from Duke Divinity School, Jonathan Lewis is an ordained deacon in the United Methodist Church and a board-certified chaplain working on a doctor of ministry degree in pastoral counseling at Memphis Theological Seminary. He works for Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare in […]

JoVeta Wescott is the executive director of Kansas Parish Nurse Ministry and a faith community nurse for over 20 years. Her life’s work also includes a thriving parish nursing outreach ministry in Pakistan, where she is heavily involved with relationship-building. Q: We believe that all humans benefit from the value of work. Christians often approach their […]

Rev. David H. Kim is the executive director of the Center for Faith and Work and pastor of faith and work at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. He holds an MDiv from Westminster Theological Seminary and ThM from Princeton Theological Seminary. Church Health Reader’s managing editor Susan Martins Miller posed questions for how […]

Mom, can you help me out? Would you dry the dishes?” As soon as she asks me, I can feel resistance rising on the inside. I don’t like drying dishes. Drying dishes may be my least favorite chore in all the world. Next to raking leaves. I try to be a grown-up about it. I […]

Building a website for your church is an effective way to engage with the greater community and reach those who are actively seeking a new faith community. A website, though, is no easy thing to build, and knowing the basics of what makes a website valuable to the visitor is essential to your site’s design. […]

Dr. Anderson Spickard, Jr., emeritus professor of medicine and psychiatry at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and recognized expert in substance abuse, brings over 45 years of experience in internal medicine. His first book, Dying for a Drink: What You and Your Family Should Know About Alcoholism, is a classic resource on the connection between addiction […]

It wasn’t church, but it felt like church. Late last summer, I attended a program orientation for incoming students in the Masters of Social Work program at the university where I teach. This is my twentieth—and last—year as an English professor at the university; beginning next fall, I’ll be a full-time MSW student, working towards […]

Ergonomics is a science that helps determine how individuals will perform best, be most comfortable while working, and reduce injuries that may result, especially from repetitive motions. Whether your job involves sitting or standing for the majority of the day, ergonomics can help prevent health problems such as obesity, metabolic syndrome, carpal tunnel, and pain […]

Multitasking is sometimes a point of dispute. Is it really effective? Can anyone truly do more than one thing at a time, all with the same standard and quality? Instead of seeking answers to these transient questions, let’s first take a moment to understand what multitasking is—or is not. Multitasking is actually time-sharing. The human […]

For 26 years, Karin Ryan has served with President Jimmy Carter and Mrs. Rosalynn Carter at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia. As the senior project advisor for the human rights program, she works to strengthen international systems and support human rights activists. President Carter dedicated his new book, A Call to Action: Women, Religion, […]

As luck would have it, I was at the Crescent Center in Memphis, Tennessee when the U.S. Marshals entered the offices of Stanford Financial and seized the company’s assets. It was a heart-pumping experience. Dressed in black, with an intense sense of purpose, the Marshals made it clear I didn’t want to get in their […]

Dear Future Doctor, Congratulations on entering medical school. I know it has been a long, difficult path to get to this point, but you have made it to the beginning of a life-changing experience. What I hope is that it doesn’t change you too much. Most students just starting out still identify more with being […]

Sr. Simone Campbell is the executive director of NETWORK, a Catholic social justice lobby, and author of A Nun on the Bus: How All of Us Can Create Hope, Change, and Community. She has organized groups of fellow Roman Catholic nuns for the Nuns on the Bus tours to raise support for social programs that […]

“My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.” —Psalm 84:2   “And a poor widow came, and put in two copper coins, which are worth a penny.” —Mark 12:42   When we speak of service, certain words come to […]

The third chapter of this endearing book composed of essays by third-year Harvard medical students begins with a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as he reflects on the story of the Good Samaritan. “The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‘If I stop to help this man, what will […]

Tears ran freely down the face of a young Afghani girl as her father carries her bloody body into the makeshift military hospital. The familiar smell of smoldering flesh and fabric alert the staff a burn victim has arrived. With skin boiling and her head scarf melting to her slim body, the staff readies for […]

In the big innings, God created the heavens and the earth, light and water, vegetation and livestock, humans—everything you need to play baseball. Later—in the seventh inning—God took a break. Some call that the Sabbath. In baseball, it’s called the seventh-inning stretch. The book of Genesis contains two creation stories. The seventh-inning stretch has at […]

The Rev. MaryAnn McKibben Dana is pastor of Idylwood Presbyterian Church in Falls Church, Virginia. She is the writer of numerous articles and essays as well as Sabbath in the Suburbs: A Family’s Experiment with Holy Time. Church Health Reader spoke with her about the practical process of introducing an intentional Sabbath into an already […]

Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” Yes, this is a Bible verse (Exodus 20:8) and one of the Ten Commandments. Many of us can repeat this verse from memory in our favorite translation. We may even know that it is repeated in Deuteronomy 5:12. So we do not doubt that keeping the Sabbath […]

Facebook, a site that thrives on connecting with one another, taught me the value of disconnecting. In late February, a message from the United Methodist Church appeared on my news feed about unplugging from technology for a 24-hour period. The Sabbath Manifesto, a project that seeks to reclaim the seventh day of creation in our […]

For more than two years Nora O’Bannon was closed in her house, unable to navigate her wheelchair down the front steps. In order for Nora to leave, her grandson would physically carry her down the steps from her home. “Being closed in,” she says, “really—it was an awful feeling.” Enter SAWs, or Servants at Work, […]

In The United Methodist Church, people often associate the bishop with a person who speaks: preaching, presiding, or generally serving as a spokesperson in the Church. When Bishop Hope Morgan Ward arrived in Mississippi in 2004, one of her first actions was the opposite. Along with her husband, Mike, she traveled to the 11 districts […]

Daniel Sulmasy, MD, is author of The Healer’s Calling: A Spirituality for Physicians and Other Health Care Professionals and The Rebirth of the Clinic: An Introduction to Spirituality in Health Care. He is the Kilbride-Clinton Professor of Medicine and Ethics in the Department of Medicine and Divinity School at the University of Chicago and associate […]