Author: Christina M. H. Powell PhD

Dr. Christina M. H. Powell, PhD works in the pharmaceutical industry and is also an ordained Assemblies of God minister and public speaker. She trained as a biomedical research scientist at Harvard Medical School, Harvard University and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry is from Penn State University.

Thoughts for the New Year

A new year brings new opportunities for achievements, for joy, for receiving blessings and bestowing blessings on others (Psalms 126). For many people, 2020 was a difficult year, and 2021 brings the promise of a better future. The sun sets on New Year’s Eve and rises on New Year’s Day, and one year turns into… Continue reading Thoughts for the New Year

Holiday Blessings

Today marks the end of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend in the United States. In a world that has experienced the challenges of a pandemic this year, words like thankful, grateful, and blessed may seen foreign. Holidays are filled with traditions and expectations, but no one year tells the story of a holiday celebration. Similarly, no… Continue reading Holiday Blessings

In good hands

Confidence is a necessary item, especially in young people. Looking over a few of the press clippings from when I was an undergraduate at Penn State University, I found my response to a newspaper editorial when I was only twenty years old and freshly appointed by the Governor of Pennsylvania to serve on a University… Continue reading In good hands

The Value of a Sparrow

Someone visited my blog and asked: “Who set the market value of sparrows in Jesus’s time? What where sparrows used for? Modern farmers see them as a liability to be exterminated to control over population. From a supply and demand analysis, sparrows would be worthless. Why would a market exist in the first place? Therefore… Continue reading The Value of a Sparrow

Tailoring Ministry to the Individual

In this day of megachurches and churches spread across multiple campuses, is it really possible or even practical to care about the individual? Yet ministry is based on the model of a shepherd  willing to leave a flock of ninety-nine sheep in an open field while searching for one lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7). In Chapter… Continue reading Tailoring Ministry to the Individual

The Gift of Presence

Scroll through the newsfeed on any platform and you will find people sharing happy moments in their lives as well as people facing tragedies and loss. On any given day, a pastor may go from celebrating the birth of a new child in the congregation to visiting a church member in a hospice. Whether in… Continue reading The Gift of Presence