Welcome to The Light, your quiet hour for reflection.
In Brazil, a small sixty-nine-page devotional called The Prayer: Rise with Jesus, thirty Days to Transform Your Life is drawing unexpected attention. Its authors believe the book could carry the national soccer team toward glory at the two thousand twenty six FIFA World Cup, a claim that invites us to sit with the old question of where faith ends and hope begins.
Closer to home, Los Angeles public school teachers are no longer required to affirm the gender identity of transgender or nonbinary students as part of mandatory training. The change, noted by an advocacy organization, reflects the ongoing tension in public institutions between care for vulnerable young people and the boundaries of professional obligation.
And yet, perhaps the most quietly striking story belongs to the youngest among us. A new Lifeway Research study finds that Generation Z attends church more often than any older generation, participates in small groups at the highest rates, and serves with genuine consistency. What they are still finding, it seems, is how to carry Sunday into the rest of the week.
That is this hour's reflection. Carry the light gently.
