FEATURES

• "Miracle on Main Street," by Jacque Cork. What was a respectable Christian businessman doing in a bar week after week? The answer lies in a miracle.

• "Back to the Streets," by Mildred Warren. An addiction to money and drugs sent William Andrews on a downward spiral. But God's stubborn love transformed him into a forgiven, restored man and now a minister of the gospel.

• "Get a Life!" by Jacque Cork. Not long ago, life to Charlie was finding a warm, dry place to sleep, scrounging for food, and chasing his next drug fix. Since finding Jesus Christ and being nurtured by compassionate Christians, Charlie now has a new definition for "life."

• "Tantalizing the Eye - Deadening the Soul," by Jan Simonson Lanham. Equally destructive but more easily hidden addictions are creeping into Christian homes. One is the age-old problem of pornography. Another is the relatively new world of the Internet. For many, the two overlap.

• "It's Our Problem," by Wayne M. Warner. A look at the statistics associated with alcohol consumption gives a startling warning about our biggest drug problem.

• "When a Member of Your Family Can't Stop," by Dan and Kay Croy. How should we respond when the one struggling with addiction is a member of our family?

COLUMNS

• Editor's Forum: This month's panel of experts explores the problem of legal suits between church families.

• Commission: "Keep Your Chin Up and Your Knees Down," by James H. Diehl. In these difficult days, we need to keep our chins, our courage, our faith, and our optimism up. But, just as importantly, we need to go down to our knees in prayer, intercession, and prevailing faith. But how can the modern church be in constant prayer? Have you tried "shower praying"?

• Metro: "Subverting Cities Through Prayer," by Fletcher L. Tink. In God's unique mathematical equation, a few faithful urban saints can tip the scale to save a city from calamity. Perhaps your intercession and devotion will provide that margin of redemption needed to rescue your own city.

• Worldview: "Passion Fatigue," by Chuck Gailey. More than 1,000 people groups around the world still have not been reached with the gospel. This is no time to succumb to drowsiness and fatigue.

• Portraits: "William Woolford: An Apple in the Seed," by Debbie Salter Goodwin. "Any fool can count the seeds in an apple, but who can count the apples in a seed?" I thank God that we go along sowing seeds, and God will take care of the pieces.

• Touching: "A Travelogue of Tears," by David M. Best. The stories of Kosovars that the world has been watching via the television screen became alarmingly three-dimensional as we found ourselves face-to-face with people driven from their homes against their will, fleeing with only the clothes on their backs, stripped of jewelry, documents, and, in many cases, loved ones.

• The Deeper Way: "Filled with the Holy Spirit," by Jesse C. Middendorf. We had all come from schedules too busy to allow for anything like this retreat, and yet each who attended felt somehow that the times demanded it. There was desperation in our prayer, and a common theme developed almost immediately: "Fill us with Your Holy Spirit!"

• Heartbeat: "Many Languages - One Truth," by Michael R. Estep. You may not speak Chichewa, but aren't you glad your church does to the 10 million people of Malawi? One by one, Jesus speaks to them words of forgiveness - in Chichewa.

• Essay: "A 50-Cent Rosebush," by Karen Dean Fry. "I would rather be a 50-cent rosebush in a five-dollar hole than to be a five-dollar bush in a 50-cent hole." Surely, the reason for all that gladness in my life is the fact that I landed in a five-dollar hole.