By John Chandler My colleague and friend J.R. Woodward, author of Creating a Missional Culture and leader of the V3 church planting movement, was recently leading a “Community of Practice” — a collection of church pastors and leaders working over…
Forever asking, what’s the next right thing?
Quite often, over the course of numerous conversations unfolding inside the circled wagons of wounded American evangelicalism, there develops this almost liturgically repetitious refrain among the faithful: Our best years are behind us. Whether it’s wistfully recounting the size of…
RG3, false persecution, and Christianity
There’s a big uproar over Robert Griffin III reversing his shirt inside out at a press conference. RG3’s shirt read, “Know Jesus Know Peace” or “No Jesus No Peace”. (Cool play on words there.) Over at Fox News, they are creating a controversy….
Figuring out a life of prayer
By Amy Butler Looking back over my life I realize I’ve traveled a winding road as it relates to the spiritual practice of prayer. Lately I’ve turned another corner, and this week I’ve been thinking a lot about that journey….
Two odd little words: the LGBT issue, part 11 (Revised)
By David Gushee Follow David: @dpgushee In 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10, Paul (in the second case, probably a pseudonymous “Paul”) deploys two “vice lists” — a common enough rhetorical strategy in the Greco-Roman world — to communicate…
Stop making sense
By Michael Ruffin When I was a child, little made sense to me. I did not understand the purpose of life. I did not understand the meaning of my life. I did not understand the power and fragility of intimacy….
Crisis or opportunity?
In 1883, Emma Lazarus penned the words to the poem, THE NEW COLOSSUS, to be used commemoration of and as a fund raising initiative for the pedestal on which would stand the Statue of Liberty. Some of the words toward…
Here’s to God!
By Brett Younger During the second Skype interview with the church in Chile I’m now serving as interim pastor while on sabbatical, a lovely woman from Holland said, “We don’t know many Baptists, so we need to ask three Baptist…
The Ebola crisis: watch your language
By Elizabeth Evans Hagan Early in August, I traveled with a Feed the Children delegation to Kenya to visit school feeding programs and a Nairobi orphanage, as I now do about twice a year. Part of my morning routine while there…