God-centered resources from the ministry of John Piper

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm pretty bad about keeping up with the news. It seems like enough work just to handle what is on my plate already, no less to spend additional time reading about what's going on in the world.

But knowing the news is important. How else are we to learn about what to pray for, or where to send our church's ministry teams, or where to invest our next tax return?

Despite my failures, I have begun making a little headway on this issue. And though I plan to increase my exposure in the future, a good way for me to at least get some news these days has been through the Day in pictures section on the BBC World News website.

Not only can I read through the major headlines in the captions, but I can also learn a lot through the photographs. (The old adage "A picture is worth a thousand words" is right). Oftentimes headlines hit me like, well, nothing. But a photograph helps me see the suffering on a mother's face, or it reawakens me with the picture of a Hindu holy man to the desperate reality that millions of people around the world are bowing down to gods other than the Lord Jesus.

So whether you're a college student with no front step for a newspaper, or whether you've decided to not waste your life and gotten rid of your TV, I recommend at least checking out some of the news in pictures from time to time.

I for one have found it to be an enjoyable way to get the keeping-up-with-the-news habit started. And as it continues and matures I trust that I will, by God's grace, only grow in my affections and abilities to love my neighbor.