The latest issue of Gospel Today magazine features five women pastors on the cover. LifeWay Christian Stores has pulled this issue from its shelves, citing conflict with Southern Baptist beliefs.

What do you think about this move? Do you agree or disagree with the bookstore chain’s decision?

Whose job is it?

In a recent issue of Today's Christian Woman, I wrote about the lessons I learned on loving “the least of these” when I volunteered with an English as a Second Language class. Spending my Wednesday nights in a church basement with a room full of immigrants from around the world was a funny, rewarding, and eye-opening experience.

I learned about the needy living right in my backyard, as well as the blessing and challenge of working with a government-funded ministry. The teachers could talk some about matters of faith—mainly in a cultural and historical context. But as a volunteer, I was free to speak about the hope I have in Christ.

Christians have long disagreed on the role of the government versus the role of the church when it comes to caring for the needy among us. And in this election season, as political conversations finally focus less on the historic candidates and more on the issues, this tricky topic is back in public discussions.

What I’ve learned about the all-or-nothing nature of friendships

I gently propelled the umbrella stroller cradling my little one over the bumps and cracks of my subdivision's sidewalk. Surveying the shuttered cookie-cutter houses and neat, empty yards surrounding me, my heart suddenly ached with acute loneliness.

A first-time mom who'd left the marketplace to stay home with her newborn, I felt adrift in suburbia—cut loose, by my own choice—from the relational world to which I'd once belonged, one filled with the laughter and shared confidences of coworkers and other career-absorbed friends.

Throughout days of burping and diapering and breastfeeding my baby, my isolation grew. While I loved caring for my tiny daughter, I became famished for female friendship. So I began to pray, “Lord, you know I don't make friends easily. Right now I feel shy and lonely and insecure. I desperately need some girlfriends in this unfamiliar season of life. Please, help me!”

A work-at-home mom wonders what Sarah Palin’s candidacy means for mothers everywhere.

The night I heard James Dobson singing the praises of mother of five Sarah Palin as a vice presidential candidate just after I heard a couple of feminist-minded commentators suggesting Palin ought to be staying home with her children, I wondered if the book of Revelation had something to say about times like these. Surely such side-swapping is a sign of the apocalypse.

I mean, no offense, but Dr. Dobson hasn’t exactly been the working mom’s biggest fan. And no hard feelings toward the feminist commentators, but since when did they think a woman ought be anywhere other than where she wanted to be?

Getting beyond race, gender, and teen pregnancy as we discuss this fascinating election season

Last night at a local restaurant over a plate of fou-fou cheese and fruit, my friend Kathryn and I discussed a woman we’d never even heard of a week earlier. That’s right, Sarah Palin.

Somehow over the past few months, the issue of politics has worked its way into my friend’s and my usual chatter about work and men. And we ran some of our first political coverage in the current issue of TCW (see our sneak peek below).

Even though Kathryn and I aren’t uber-political, how can we not discuss politics when the past week alone has been pretty incredible: Obama filled a stadium to mark history as our first African American presidential candidate. McCain picked a woman as his running mate. And that woman’s unmarried teenage daughter turned out to be pregnant. No matter your interest level in politics (or lack thereof) or your party affiliation (or lack thereof), there’s been plenty to discuss.