Professional engineer Jeff Morrish can’t engineer the weather—no matter what fellow members of his Susanville, Calif., church say. But after several drought years, in 2015 he started a group praying for rain, even though others said prayer would do no good at all. 

Rain or shine, Morrish and others in the Pray for Rain group at Susanville Church of the Nazarene, known as SuzNaz, kept meeting on Monday evenings. Sometimes a few attended, sometimes as many as 25.

Second in a series on long ministry

For 37 years, Steven Thomas has served as pastor of Huron Baptist Church in Flat Rock, Mich. Looking back, he sees his own ambition as a persistent challenge to his ministry. But fully recognizing the problem took years.

First in an occasional series on long ministry

The new Netflix documentary series, The Family, could have been an insightful exploration of the poisoning effects of secrecy and political power on faith. Instead, it contributes to the divisive age we live in by turning common failings into Da Vinci Code–style conspiracies and subtly suggesting evangelicalism itself is a threat to the nation.

Joshua Harris’ divorce from both his wife and Christianity stunned many evangelicals. Here are analyses written by WORLD Magazine columnist Janie B. Cheaney and WORLD News Group board member Albert Mohler, republished here with their permission. —Marvin Olasky

Joshua Harris and the perils of idolatry

By Janie B. Cheaney

The Christian fraternity house at the University of Michigan looks like a stone castle with two towers and an arched entryway. During the last week of June, 21 high-school students lived here along with six staff members from Knox Presbyterian Church. Their goal: to advance Christ’s kingdom in their hometown of Ann Arbor, Mich. 

David Powlison (1949-2019) died of pancreatic cancer on June 7. I knew him. He balanced my checkbook once in his front parlor when I was a widow. I don’t let just anyone balance my checkbook, but he started as a math major at Harvard, so it seemed safe enough.

I don’t suppose that moment will make it into an official biography. Nor will the official biography likely include that, when my single-parent friend’s daughter was a tad prodigal, he would drive over to their house in the mornings and chauffeur the girl to school.