Ashes Unveil What’s Inside of Me From ashes I come, and to ashes I will return. Last week, like many, I participated in an Ash Wednesday service. A time to stop. A time to recognize like all those who have…
All politics is local? Forget it.
By John Chandler During Singapore’s recent World Cities Summit, National Geographic’s Jeremy Bentham opined on some of the megatrends of ascending urban migration. Noting that the United Nations projects that the world’s population will grow from roughly seven billion today…
Choosing sides, teams or labels in the CBF serves no purpose
A recent BNG article reported a seminary professor’s comments on the “moderate” label for some in the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. In the 1990s I was a student at Southern Seminary in Louisville. The Southern Baptist Convention decided to create a…
Essential practices for young congregations
Part One Impacting the Vitality and Vibrancy of Churches For Decades to Come The ministry practices congregations establish during their first seven years of life, that must be re-envisioned and renewed every seven years thereafter, are institutionalized by the time…
There’s no danger in raising questions
By Starlette McNeill This week, I presented on the topic “The Double-Minded Church: Spiritual Formation and the Impractical Theology of Race” at ChurchWorks, a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship conference for ministers of education and spiritual formation. I know. The title is…
Does loving my neighbor mean I have to be wrong?
Just the facts, ma’am Driving an automobile has been the source of an ongoing life lesson lately, and I’m pretty much ready to have the lesson learned and move on. Last weekend I had taken my son to Miami for…
Why some question whether the President loves America
President Obama’s comments at the annual prayer breakfast sparked a tsunami of protest from conservative politicians and opinion leaders, but it’s not clear why. The president’s remarks were measured and carefully calibrated to the point of being banal. But two…
Truly knowing people simultaneously clears and blurs your vision
This subject, about which I have thought for many years, was stimulated by a recent Pew Research Center study referenced in an article entitled Americans Are More Likely to Like Muslims if They Know One. The research report from Pew…
Uncoerced faith remains a burning question
By Bill Leonard On Sunday, Feb. 15, 2015, the terrorists who call themselves an Islamic State released a lurid video showing the decapitation of 21 Egyptian laborers working in Libya. Taken hostage in January, largely because they were Coptic Christians,…
Answering God’s call isn’t like choosing the right door
By Amy Butler Most days I’m very grateful for my conservative evangelical childhood. For one thing, I can beat almost anybody at sword drill, which has never actually come in handy since I reached adulthood, but I’m not discounting the possibility…
How can you love God but hate your neighbor? You can’t.
By Scott Dickison For those of us in the Western wing of the Christian family, yesterday was the first Sunday in Lent, which began last Wednesday and is the 40-day season of fasting and preparation leading up to Easter. But…
Elijahs and Elishas
The handoff from one pastor to the next is always tricky. For everyone. I’m basically at the start of my career. Now we pastor-types don’t like to use such crass professional terminology, preferring to say “calling” or “vocation” or “ministry”…