By Amy Butler This is, hands down, the least favorite time of year for pastors everywhere: church budget planning season. Nobody likes budget planning, from the tedious work it entails to the way in which money necessarily informs the work…
How Hurricane Hugo broke a racial barrier
By George Bullard Twenty-five years ago Hurricane Hugo made landfall in the Charleston, S.C., area and brought significant destruction in almost two dozen counties. At that time I was working for Baptists in South Carolina and supervised the department that…
Healing (a parable)
Leah was getting burned out. She didn’t know if she could continue at this pace. The solutions were more draining than the problem. Leah had a troubled past. Having been abused by her father, rejected and used by other men,…
The mystery of ordination
By Molly T. Marshall This past Sunday evening I participated in an ordination service for three graduates of our seminary, two women and one man. None was a twenty-something; all had been serving for years in their home church, Metropolitan…
Weeping prophets, deep lament
By Greg Jarrell The author, who leads an intentional Christian community in Charlotte, N.C., attended the recent annual national conference of the Christian Community Development Association, a network of Christians committed to wholistic restoration for communities spiritually, emotionally, physically, economically…
Labor trafficking isn’t a problem. Is it?
She had been called in to cut and style a woman’s hair in her home. She arrived and thought it strange that this one woman lived with quite a few men in a house. There was little furniture except for…
Creation, sexual orientation, and God’s will: The LGBT issue, part 13
By David Gushee Follow David: @dpgushee Here are three proposals for responding to the very important claim that God’s design in creation rules out any same-sex relationships, a claim derived from Genesis 1-2, Matthew 19, Romans 1 and perhaps also…
The day I agreed with Satan
By Seth Vopat War rages with all its fogginess and once again we find ourselves in the United States questioning how we should respond. Will airstrikes alone be enough, or will we need ground forces? Ebola spreads throughout parts of…
How Hurricane Hugo broke the racial barrier
Twenty-five years ago on September 21, 1989 Hurricane Hugo made landfall in the Charleston, SC area and brought significant destruction in almost two dozen counties. At that time I was working for Baptists in South Carolina and supervised the department…
‘We admitted we were powerless’
By Marion Aldridge You don’t have to get on an airplane or traverse an ocean to make discoveries. About 25 years ago, I began visiting church basements and other community rooms where, once or twice each week, men and women…
cynicism + the art of resurrection.
If you’ve been reading my work for any length of time (and once again, I recycle this joke only because it’s too good not to: thanks Mom!) you’ve likely at one point or another come to at least 2 conclusions about…
‘We admitted we were powerless….’
You don’t have to get on an airplane or traverse an ocean to make discoveries. About twenty-five years ago, I began visiting church basements and other community rooms where, once or twice each week, men and women gathered to talk…