I still love Rick Warren - and this is a great story!

A number of years ago I signed up for Rick Warren's Ministry Toolbox. You get an e-mail from Pastor Rick every week with an article on a particular subject. There's a few other resources as well, but Warren's own contribution is usually the highlight.

This week his piece is You Need A Mentor. It's all practical down to earth stuff as you'd expect. But he tells the story of a mentor he had named Billy. Billy had had a mentor himself. He - Billy's mentor - was the pastor of a church in Texas. One day Billy asked him a question: "I'd like to know how you stay fresh?" The pastor replied that he read the New Testament every...I'll not spoil it for you. You can read the whole thing here. Be ready for a double surprise!

Person of the Year

Time Magazine chooses a Person of the Year every year. The 2008 choice is Barack Obama.

I think you can make a good case for the President -Elect being Person of the Year. It is a remarkable achievement for an African-American to become president considering that segregation was still the practice in some states in fairly recent history.

It is also a remarkable testimony to American democracy and its capacity for self-renewal and the willingness of its electorate to show itself a world leader in its choice of president. Many European nations look down their noses at America and its people, but I can't think of a single state in Europe - Britain included - where a non-white would have had a ghost of a chance of becoming president or prime minister. Well done America.

You might have read that Rick Warren has been asked to pray at Obama's inauguration. I'm sure he has good political reasons for inviting Warren to pray on such a big occasion. In doing so, he has upset some of his own supporters who dislike Warren's stances on marriage and abortion.

Perhaps Obama is showing himself a leader who wants to be president for all Americans, not just his own supporters. He can only be commended for that. Let's pray that God will give Rick Warren wisdom on this occasion and whenever he has opportunity to talk to the new president.

The Seattle Times has a write up on the choice of Warren to pray at Obama's inauguration.