It is midnight. Not the kind of midnight measured by clocks. The kind that settles into your bones. The kind that lingers long after the sun has risen. We all know this midnight. It is the midnight of the marriage...
My friend Jim Baucom pointed me to a column written recently by one of my favorite writers, David Brooks. Brooks wrote a wonderful, breezy book in 2001 called Bobos In Paradise, a self-described “comic sociology” of sweeping generalizations about the…
I can’t help looking at the little signs outside churches. “Faith makes things possible, not easy” has been the message on the board of the Methodist church near my house for two weeks now. Recently, something else has started to…
Very regularly, ministers ask for my help with ministerial and congregational life in very pragmatic ways. What is the best way to organize, plan, preach, administer, supervise, lead, teach, evangelize, pray, cultivate a spiritual life, raise a family, play? You…
Last week, Bill Webb, an editor colleague from Missouri, and I sat with an interpreter and listened to heart-breaking accounts from Syrian refugees of life and death. And hopelessness. (See “Dispiriting Stories” on p. 15.) In the form of Syrian…
By Mahan Siler Prophetic is such a vigorous word. It brings to mind the courageous actions of an Amos, Shiphrah and Puah, Ghandi, Day or King. Prophets stand up, stick out with their actions for justice in the face of…
By Robert Dilday & Ken Camp It may not feel like it to number-crunchers huddled around a Sunday school classroom table, fine-tuning annual financial proposals for an upcoming church business meeting. But church budgets are moral statements that reflect ethical…
By Ken Camp and Robert Dilday Houston-area residents know South Main Baptist Church for the beauty of its Romanesque sanctuary and for its reputation as a progressive congregation committed to meeting physical and spiritual needs, both locally and globally. Keeping…
By Bob Allen The world’s most famous Sunday school teacher is losing a pastor. Jeff Summers, pastor of Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., for eight years, has announced his decision to accept a call to New Hope Baptist Church…
