By Amy Butler Has anybody out there noticed that church attendance has been lower lately? The church budget is stretched thin because fewer people are giving? You can’t get a commitment out of people who are so busy they are…
The end of the world as we know it
By Amy Butler Has anybody out there noticed that church attendance has been lower lately? The church budget is stretched thin because fewer people are giving? You can’t get a commitment out of people who are so busy they are…
Baptists and Episcopalians together?
In my book Ecumenism Means You, Too: Ordinary Christians and the Quest for Christian Unity, I suggested this as something that “ordinary Christians” can do locally to further the visible unity of the church: “If your own denomination has been in…official…
A Baptist among Jews
By Molly T. Marshall I grew up in a church which shared a block with a small synagogue. Our town did not have a rabbi, so these families depended upon Jewish clergy from a larger city nearby to provide leadership…
Receiving hospitality
Alan Roxburgh’s recent book, “Missional: Joining God in the Neighborhood,” lead me to a different sort of reading of a recent Sunday Gospel lesson from Mark 6:1-13. Jesus goes into his own home town with his disciples, teaches in the…
Church: The unwanted product
I was having a conversation recently with our pastoral intern and he told me with some frustration on his face,“Sometimes I feel like I’m trying to push a product that no one wants.” (He was referring to the Church). During…
Railing at God, as God rails at us
By Bob Setzer Like most Americans, I am heartsick about the tragic shooting at a theater in Aurora, Colo. When the faces of the 12 people who died so young and full of life scroll past on my computer screen,…
Railing at God, as God rails at us
By Bob Setzer Like most Americans, I am heartsick about the tragic shooting at a theater in Aurora, Colo. When the faces of the 12 people who died so young and full of life scroll past on my computer screen,…
An Open Letter to Dan Cathy at Chick-Fil-A
An Open Letter to Dan Cathy From a Concerned Baptist Pastor July 19, 2012 Dear Mr. Cathy, I don’t expect you to remember me. You and your father spoke at chapel during my freshman year of college in 2000. You…