By Bill Wilson Current Christmas celebration habits are a uniquely post-World War II phenomenon. Much of the excess we experience stands at odds with the way Western society approached the holiday only a few years ago. This shift has lessons…
Spears, tridents, pitchforks, and rakes
I am concerned about the focus of the church, or its lack of focus. There was a time when the church in the United States was relatively financially flush and spent its money on a variety of ministries. Churches had…
Blue Christmas
Last year about this time I was preaching for the Blue Christmas service held at a church in a another city. It’s one of those services where the church gives a nod to the fact that not all people are…
God with skin on
By Amy Butler One of my spiritual mentors used to remark around Christmas every year about how amazing it is that God decided it would be a good idea to come to earth as a human. “Jesus was God —…
What’s your story?
After I watched the Heisman Trophy presentation on ESPN last Saturday night (my selection did not win, by the way), I stayed on the channel and saw the documentary “You Don’t Know Bo” about athlete “Bo” Jackson. Although I was…
Clergy self-esteem
If you suffer from low self-esteem, you might not want to go into local church ministry. Of course, if others suffer from your overly inflated self-esteem, you probably shouldn’t go into local church ministry either. Who, then, can survive, you…
Making room for joy
By Molly T. Marshall I have always been an avid reader of Dr. Seuss. Long before I became a theologian, I knew that his whimsical rhyming contained great wisdom and ethical insight. He was well ahead of his contemporaries on…
The generosity experiment
If Simon Peter’s brother, Andrew, had found an adult with a lunch of five barley loaves and two fish, instead of a young boy, I’m not sure the 5000 would have been fed that day. “My little lunch is not even…
When Christmas isn’t the ‘Most Wonderful Time of the Year’
‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28) Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year! Only it’s not. Not for everyone. Not when he’s still…
‘The Hobbit’ as Advent journey
By Darrell Gwaltney “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit,” so begins J.R.R. Tokien’s The Hobbit or There and Back Again. In preparation for The Hobbit: An UnExpected Journey opening this weekend, I picked up my old…
Amanda died the other day, but her singing continues
Almost four decades ago while I was serving as pastor of an inner city congregation near a Baptist seminary, I would often have seminary students visit to see if they could obtain some ministry experience as a volunteer with our…
How to Kill a Church
A prefatory note: This brief story was written based on conversations I’ve had with ministers, laypeople and leaders, young and old, rich and poor, and those no longer visiting church. It was a cold, December day and though the Nativity scene was brightly…