It may now seem surprising to many United Methodists, and even more Baptists, that for most of our histories in the United States, all Methodists and Baptists were regularly designated as evangelical denominations. The most important reason is that both...
Maybe this unwanted virus could serve as an invisible stranger, confronting us at the riverside of our own generosity (that should not be necessary), begging us to ask the obvious question: Why are so many children so poor to begin with?
Not only is it okay for your church to be terrible at video production; in my view, it may be preferable. Don’t assume you have to embrace digital media in order to be “relevant.”
Baptist News Global provides a free listing of ministry-related jobs for Baptist churches, theological institutions and organizations across the United States. Each free posting is for 30 days and is limited to 150 words. Postings may be extended another 30…
Millions are now experiencing the social distancing and isolation I have felt in the months following my kidney transplant. I hope they will also experience the kind of creative love and care my church offered me.
Online or as gathered community, through PayPal or the offering plate, when it is “sanctuary and when it isn’t, we cling to the gospel and the church, not as a hymn-singing non-profit, but as the Body of Christ.
“My fear is that while we’re worried about broadcasting services, the real issue is the number of churches who cannot survive an eight-week or three-month hiatus from gathering together.”
Looking for signs of the end times doesn’t prepare us to live in times of crisis; it only allows us to spiritualize real-world problems and imagine a divine intervention that frees us from earthly responsibility to address social inequality, disease and global disaster.
What if this, our most recent apocalypse, was met by a Church willing to do more than hastily broadcast its services online – a Church willing to love, serve and give up itself, and even its budget, for the sake of the world?
A medical mission turned “Mission Impossible” when a Baptist couple from Houston tried to leave Peru as it closed its borders to combat COVID-19. “It was absolute, utter chaos,” Ruth Campos, 74, said of the scenes around Lima and its…
Although I’m not quite ready to repent of it, I see that I’ve become one of those people who sees the world only through what suits me and my wants.
Behind every canceled church gathering in the age of the novel coronavirus is likely to be a faithful-though-frazzled pastor. Their stress emanates from having to decide between the physical and spiritual health of the congregation they serve.
While we are in no way beset by all that Dickens’ time portended, we have some choices about how to live in our own time.
