By Barry Howard July 4th falls on Sunday this year. Where will you be this Sunday morning? Independence Day falls on Sunday only every few years. The last time this occurred was 2004. The next time July 4th falls on…
‘Prophetic leadership’ isn’t an idle phrase
By Amy Butler Seems like everybody likes to use the phrase “prophetic leadership” when it comes to the church. It sounds deeply theological and also a little daring, don’t you think? Pastor search committees have a tendency to use the…
Church, state, and the mouse’s fate
By Brent Beasley This week a good friend of mine from a former church, Carmen Anderson, asked me for a story I once told in a sermon about farm animals that all got killed by the farmer. She thought she…
“Christian nation” e-mails inbound…
With July 4th looming, I expect the usual flurry of e-mails telling me the following: 1. On the aluminum cap atop the Washington Monument are two Latin words, Laus Deo, meaning, “Praise be to God;” 2. the Founding Fathers were…
Gen. McChrystal and the power of words
By Jim Denison President Obama looked “uncomfortable and intimidated” in his first meeting with military leaders after taking office, according to Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The general was even less impressed with Vice President Biden’s opposition to his Afghanistan strategy: “Are…
Stray bullets
By David Wilkinson What goes up must come down. As our family recently discovered, that includes a .40-caliber bullet. Our daughter Meredith, driving a car she had borrowed from a cousin for a month-long summer job, was preparing to return…
Are future ministers up to the challenge?
By Barry Howard This week I’ve had the privilege of sitting around the table with a distinguished group of future ministers and veteran ministers in a retreat setting as we collaborated about our sense of calling, the challenges and opportunities…
We’re all in Deepwater
By Joseph Perdue As a Floridian, it is especially heart-wrenching and anger-inducing for me to watch the tar balls and oil slicks from BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster advancing inexorably on my state, destined to destroy our abundant wildlife and mar…
After GCR, beware a new golden calf
By Bill Webb The report and recommendations of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Great Commission Resurgence (GCR) Task Force were in no real danger of being rejected by messengers to last week’s SBC annual meeting in Orlando. Task force leaders apparently…
The wisdom in staying anchored
By David Gushee This year I have been working my way through the books dropped from the Protestant canon. I admit that when I was a Catholic kid I never read them and after I became a Baptist I believed…
The Kingdom of God looks like…
By Amy Butler When I first took up preaching every Sunday I made the decision to follow the Revised Common Lectionary as a guide for worship planning. It would be nice to say that I chose to do this because…
Reflections on Father’s Day
By Charles Deweese Several years ago my father, Philip Deweese of Asheville, N.C., issued an imperative, but ironic, challenge to me: “Son, don’t ever turn 65.” Although temporarily startled, I knew what he meant. After turning 65, he had experienced…