Starting Wednesday, September 6th, I’ll be teaching through the book of 1 Peter using Facebook Live over on my page at facebook.com/shaungroves We’ll get started at 7PM CST (If I can figure the technology out). If you can’t make it, no problem – the video will be saved so you… Read More
Don’t we all need some good news? It’s so good to see so many neighbors coming together and loving each other well in Texas right now. Courageous first responders, the National Guard, and everyday folks… I’m especially encouraged by all the churches across South Texas that are making… Read More
Last night, millions of people much cooler (and younger) than I stayed up late to hear Taylor Swift’s new song. It’s a catchy, seemingly vengeful rant against her enemies in which she unambiguously declares “I don’t like you” and “I’ve got a list of names and yours is in… Read More
It’s literally my business to understand how Facebook works and hack it. Facebook serves us more of what it thinks we like. If you’re a conservative who shares posts from Fox News, Breitbart, and the Drudge Report, Facebook makes sure more of the same appears in your newsfeed. If you lean… Read More
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.” – Jesus (Matthew 5:9) We cannot fear conflict more than we desire peace. Peace has to be made. The making process sometimes creates friction, resistance, disagreement, debate. This is the only way some peace can… Read More
She pulled up a chair and the stories and laughter began. She’s beautiful and bubbly, a good mom and wife and friend with a gift for spinning a tale. She had a “hilarious” one to share, she said. A couple of men with dark skin were touring the home for… Read More
The trains pulled into the station after nightfall. Soldiers with machine guns stepped onto the platforms and from there streamed throughout the city, the region, and eventually all of Bulgaria. For eight days the SS soldiers hunted house to house, rounding up Jews, herding them back to the train station… Read More
The penalty for escaping from Auschwitz was steep and cruel. For every man who escaped, ten would be executed in his place. And so it happened that one morning the count came up one man short. The prisoners were called to the yard, standing in rows – bags of bones… Read More
The women kick up red clay dust, dancing with babies tied to their backs. One mother takes my hands in hers, cranes her neck up at me and shouts “dance!” So we dance. Up the drive from the van toward the little pink church. All the mothers are bending side… Read More
We stomp our feet against the red Kenyan clay, dancing arm-in-arm from the van to the church. The women, with babies tied to their backs, sing in Swahili about how good the day is simply because God gave it and gave them visitors. We bend low and the women sing… Read More
“Nothing can seem extraordinary until you have discovered what is ordinary.” ― C.S. Lewis, Miracles This is the sixteenth Compassion Bloggers trip. The very first was in 2008! Man, time flies. Thousands of children have been sponsored since then because hundreds of thousands have read our posts from around the… Read More
Seven years ago, I sloshed my way through the muddy serpentine paths of the Methare slum to meet Eliud. Eliud was a dapper Kenyan teenager then. He was wearing his school uniform, a seafoam green tie and gray sweater. His home was cobbled together from wood and rusting corrugated metal… Read More
I’m headed to Kenya tomorrow with Compassion Bloggers! I was in Kenya 7 years ago. Many of you followed along then. Remember when I met a boy named Eliud? He was 18 then, orphaned, living in a house made of wood and cardboard, in the second largest slum in all… Read More
For years I traveled the world with (mostly) women I met on the internet. I oversaw Compassion Bloggers – taking groups of great writers overseas to see the ministry of Compassion International and then write about it in hopes of seeing thousands of children sponsored. Most of the bloggers I… Read More
Twenty years I’ve been living in Nashville. And living here you learn something about talented humans that you just can’t learn many other places: The most admirable people are the ones who demand admiration the very least. The most gifted make themselves a gift to others. View Post
Magonus was born in Scotland and carried to Ireland against his will by pirates when he was a teenager. He was sold there as a servant, spending the next several years tending sheep on a mountain, learning the Irish language, and praying to God. One day God spoke to him… Read More
I got spanked by science this morning… Laura Carstensen, a “lifespan researcher”, says she knows why the elderly are happier than the young. Though their bodies and minds are weaker and less reliable than ever before, and though they experience loss much more frequently, many elderly are happier than ever… Read More
Happy Giving Tuesday! Hungover from gluttony Thursday and consumerism Friday? Pop a little antacid of generosity. To get you started, here are a few folks my family and I give to regularly (and one we’re trying out this year). I’d love to answer any questions you have about these wonderful… Read More
Everyone has a story in their head about you and your group. Understand what that story is. If it’s wrong, don’t give them proof that it’s right. For instance, here’s the story some people tell themselves about child sponsorship organizations: These charites manipulate people into making an emotional decision to… Read More
Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. – 1 Peter 1:22 “Obeying the truth” was an idiom in Peter’s day for conversion to Christianity. Everyone who has undergone this conversion is… Read More
At an Amy Grant concert, there are a lot of women who got through adolescence and college and marriage/divorce and motherhood listening to her music. There are the men who claim their wives made them come but, truth be told, have been secret fans for decades. And then there are… Read More
It was our first fight. No, in a fight two or more people exchange blows with each other. This was one man throwing a tantrum while the woman he loved just smiled. I was 19 and she was 23. Becky leaned against a light pole in the church parking lot… Read More
The Atlas of Giving Report released in April 2016 documented a decline in American generosity compared to 2015 and forecasted more of the same for the rest of the year. As a public speaker for a global charity since 2005, I’ve witnessed record-low giving by evangelical crowds I’ve spoken to over the last… Read More
I’ve been waiting “forever” for my meal. “This waiter is terrible.” She cuts in from of me in traffic. “Idiot!” I’m trying to be friendly but he’s giving me nothing but nods and the shortest answers. “Stuck up.” Fundamental attribution error: the tendency in Western cultures to… Read More
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of… Read More
Shaun Groves