John Rosemond has been teaching about biblically based parenting for more than 35 years. He just didn't always know it. From his beginnings as a child psychologist in North Carolina, Rosemond has grown into a national — and polarizing — presence, with 13 books, a column in more than 200 newspapers, and more than 150 speaking engagements around the country every year (including ones this weekend in Huntsville and Birmingham).

The first conversations with God often start as a simple prayer uttered by a child's bed: Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Most children today don't think twice about the age-old nighttime prayer.

Pulling a congregation out of its comfort zone and scattering it all over town is downright risky. But that's exactly what pastor Mike Holcomb and the leadership of Iron City Baptist Church, in the White Plains area, did when they initiated the "40 Days of Community" program.