We actually came up with the name for On Purpose Press after writing our first book, A Bed for the King. We kept coming back to why we wrote the book in the first place. Yes, we wanted families to have a faith-building alternative to some of the Christmas options out there. Yes, we wanted to provide some relief from the chaos and busyness of the holidays. Yes, we wanted girls and boys to begin doing kindness as the prelude to a lifestyle of kindness. Yes, we wanted to change the world. All of those are completely true statements, but they all dance around the heart of the issue. What are...

Mindfulness seems to be the new “buzz word” in today's popular culture. A quick Google search for “mindfulness” yields almost 6 million results! This word is being tossed around in advertising, media, sermon series, and everyday conversation. Some of you may be left wondering, what is mindfulness, really? There are many definitions of mindfulness, but my favorite belongs to Jon Kabat-Zinn, a mindfulness expert who developed the technique Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction to address a variety of physical health ailments. Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as, “paying attention in a particular w...