So how was your Sunday evening? Mine (ours) didn't go as planned. Mandy had planned to go to a movie after church with a couple of gals from church. Trae, Tori and I were going to hang around the house and play.

Boy how things changed!

After church, in the midst of one of her many windsprints through the church building, Tori threw up everything she'd eaten for lunch. And that was just the beginning. Until she finally fell asleep, she threw up every 15 minutes last night.

Ahh, the blessings of parenthood.

I was reminded last night just how painful it is, as a parent, to comfort your child when she is violently sick. It is like a punch in the gut to stand by your child in the midst of their agony.

I think last night provided a real reminder of what God must have felt as Jesus prayed in Gethsemane. As Jesus was nailed to a cross.

This morning, through the living illustration of Tori's sickness, I am reminded that my Heavenly Father knows and understands.

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I'm still processing in my mind and heart many of the good truths shared at last week's Ministry Renewal Conference at LCU. One of the insights came by way of Dr. Ric Oster who said "what we need is less confrontation and more conversation" in our efforts to reach the unchurched.

Historically, heritages within religious groups have been labeled and those labels have notoriously stuck. And you know what the notoriously stuck label of those of us from a Church of Christ heritage has been, don't you? "You folks think you are the only ones going to heaven."

Perhaps we came by that label honestly. Perhaps our evangelistic zeal of the past and our methods at presenting the good news left a sour taste in the mouths of many. Rather than engaging in conversation regarding the good news, we launched out on crusades of confrontation against our religious friends.

Oster's point is well-served. I never want to acquiesce truth for the sake of popular culture but I do recognize in the ever-changing dynamics of life in the United States that confrontation as a means of evangelism is a relic of the past. Like the dinosaurs, confrontation as a means of witness must give way to a more kinder, gentler approach. An approach that speaks truth in a gracious way. An approach that doesn't build fences with the first word. An approach based more on conversation and less on confrontation.