By Leroy Seat The View from This Seat
Loving God with our minds
By Scott Dickison It would be difficult to grow up in our church and not learn the verse from Scripture that Christians around the world know simply as the “Greatest Commandment:” You shall love the Lord your God with all…
Bringing Scout out of the shadows of Atticus’s “selfie”
By now Harper Lee’s novel, Go Set a Watchman, released less than a month ago and the controversy surrounding it’s publication has become old news. However, I wanted to read the novel for myself before weighing in or making any…
A few words against faith
By Brett Younger I have about had it with faith. When Paul says, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three” (1 Cor. 13:13), I hope the order is alphabetical. I am fine with hope — Shawshank Redemption kind…
matter, that is.
When you’ve spent your entire life asking the world for permission to exist, it can be rather unnerving when it repeatedly answers back with a resounding “no.” Growing up, I enjoyed a rather typical existence for a middle class white…
It takes a village . . . to sing us to heaven
If it takes a village to raise a child, the same is true when life draws to a close and death ushers a loved one into the greater presence of God. Loss, particularly death, is difficult to face apart from the…
Healthy disbelief
By Molly T. Marshall A rather heated exchange about the atonement theory of a hymn has ensued. Baptists and Presbyterians have weighed in on what the cross of Christ “satisfied,” the nature of divine wrath, and whether singing an objectionable…
Moving beyond denial to determination: Pathway of engaging newcomers
With church attendance on the decline in many communities and an increasing disinterest in church attendance and membership, newcomers, visitors/guests are a rare and seemingly desired and valued group by churches today. I have been in a clergy role, lay…
Dancing Baptists?
By Nora O. Lozano Two weeks ago, during the celebrations of the BWA World Congress and the Women’s Department Leadership Conference, many Baptists from around the world worshipped together with our Baptist sisters and brothers from South Africa. Some had…
Bivocational ministry is a thing of great beauty
You can call it bivocational ministry, two or dual career ministry, tentmaking, conjoint ministry, multi-focused ministry, or something else. Yet, when referring to the commitment of a majority of people in Christian ministry one or more of these titles fit….
Spirituality: 4:30 a.m. and mindfulness
[This is the sixth (spirituality) of a nine-part series on empowering a faith community to impact the world. Already hospitality, evangelism, missions, ethics and Bible have been explored.] During my sabbatical study at Oxford University many years ago, I decided to take a…
Home field advantage
By Corey Fields We recently visited my wife’s family. Up where they live, you watch a lot of Yankees baseball. At one point they were playing a series against the Rangers in Texas. In one of these away games, the…