By Bill Wilson It was Vaclav Havel who described the dilemma every leader has with the issue of vision: Vision is not enough; it must be combined with venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps; we must…
There is purpose
There’s an argument going on. Sometimes you have to listen closely, but it’s rumbling beneath the polite noise of our sophisticated society like the background radiation of the Big Bang, filling every black hole as it sweeps across an infinite…
Top ten healthy, positive reasons people are NOT leaving your church
Surely you have heard the organizational management idea that you want to get the wrong people off of the bus and the right people on the bus. Well, this is an article on why the right people stay on the…
A nation confronted by conscience
By Bill Leonard “Our enemies act without conscience. We must not. This executive summary of the [Senate Intelligence] Committee’s report makes clear that acting without conscience isn’t necessary, it isn’t even helpful, in winning this strange and long war we’re…
A failure of imagination on reading Scripture, part 2
In the first part of this post, I made the point that God’s word (and by association, God himself) often gets a bad rap. But, I argued, this is more a function of a failure on the part of his…
Jumping in, feet first
By Amy Butler I’m wondering this week if we’re having enough difficult conversations. Horrible images on the news, protests in the streets, a growing awareness — if we didn’t know it before — that all is certainly not right with…
Why people are NOT leaving your church
The Internet is full of articles about why people are leaving church—or never attending church in the first place. Some are called “nones” and recently many people are using the term “dones” for those who are finished with church—at least…
In latest Exodus film, God’s a petulant boy, while Moses and Ramses play macho head games
Ridley Scott directs great movies. He won the Oscar for Best Picture in 2000 for Gladiator, and his films Alien and Blade Runner are science fiction classics. Scott has a way of offering grand spectacles on the screen and telling…
Images of the Kingdom
By Aileen Lawrimore “I’m going to move over here by Ruby so she can hear me,” Edna said as she stood, stepping over so her voice would project directly into her friend’s ear. “How’s this?” she asked. “Can you hear…
We’ve only just begun to deal with our prejudice
In the United States some people are prejudiced against African-Americans. Some against Anglo-Americans. Some against Hispanic-Americans. Some against Asian-Americans. Some against Native-Americans. Some people are prejudiced against immigrants, whether legal or illegal. They fail to acknowledge that most all of…
Sometimes it’s just a matter of showing up
By Jayne Davis It was really such a simple plan. The group would meet at my house at 4:30 for coffee and dessert and then head off together to the nursing home at 6 to sing Christmas carols for residents…
The Myth of Righteous America: Why white people support Darren Wilson
The shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson and the choking death of Eric Garner in Staten Island have dominated the news cycle for weeks, making it almost impossible to get any other issue onto the agenda. Immigration, Ebola and…