Not unlike King’s assassination, in killing Jesus, many religious leaders of the day believed they were silencing someone who challenged their power and character.
Does communion mean anything? A lament over the BGAV and CBF
For the BGAV and CBF, perhaps “communion” now means we just share a little instead of share abundantly. Maybe “communion” now means we have only periodic public fellowship with each other instead of intimate friendship as brothers and sisters in Christ. Perhaps “communion” now means rapport and affinity move towards separation and estrangement.
How our church doubled our Wednesday night attendance in one week
If Sunday and midweek attendance patterns are not going back to the 1950s, then every church should consider creative ways to engage people in the culture as it exists, not the culture in which our grandparents lived.
How churches can combat the opioid crisis in 2018
In 2017, we heard more than ever about the opioid crisis in the United States. There seems to be bipartisan agreement that a serious problem exists, and perhaps even a bipartisan agreement on meaningful solutions. Last year, I became deeply…
Have Evangelicals forgotten the real meaning of Christmas?
Instead of giving up privilege as Christ did, many Evangelicals seek privilege and advantage over others at all costs. Do people who seek their own advantage at every turn — even sacrificing moral authority and prophetic witness for political power — know the meaning of the words, Merry Christmas?
Christendom is dead. It’s time to be vulnerable.
Where are the churches willing to model vulnerability? I’ll tell you what they look like. They have given up on Christendom. They have given up on the notion that they hold some place of privilege in our culture.
Longing for a new season and the weariness of the current age
In nature, and from year to year, new seasons come and go. Sometimes we long for the season prior, but often we long most deeply for the season ahead. Church and ministry can also be that way.
Four questions every stewardship committee should be asking but probably isn’t
Many questions are being explored as these faithful teams attempt to craft a working budget for the year ahead. Here are four questions they would do well to ask.
The Scopes Monkey Trial and global warming: Same playbook, different football
It’s been nearly a hundred years since The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, but for many, science (or the Bible — depending on your perspective) remain on trial.
What are we in the Church fighting for?
The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship is 25 this year. No longer in infancy or even adolescence as an organization, I still hear people crack jokes about being “cooperative” Baptists instead of fighting Baptists. Since I have been in paid vocational ministry,…
Does Easter mean anything at all?
What if this Easter season, Christians everywhere stopped scapegoating others and we owned our own complicity in the violence of the world? What if instead of blaming a politician or a “them” group of people, we admitted our own guilt in the injustices of humanity, however small?
Refusing to quarrel on Facebook, and what to do with new found free time
The first words of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis read: “Everyone has heard people quarreling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however, it sounds I believe we can learn something very important from listening to…