Imagine you’re an adult Bible study teacher in a local church, a layperson without access to personal theological library. Imagine it’s a Saturday afternoon and you’re working on a lesson and need help, so you turn to the largest library…
Coffee, conversation and Christianity go together like cups and saucers
Across the American South, it’s hard to sit in a coffee shop anywhere and not overhear a Bible study or a conversation about Christian faith. America’s obsession with coffee — whether from Starbucks or the hippest new local spot —…
Beth Moore and a lost Southern Baptist Convention
Religion News Service reporter Bob Smietana broke the story this week that famous Bible study leader Beth Moore is leaving the Southern Baptist Convention and ending the mutually lucrative publishing relationship with their Lifeway group. She claimed that the SBC…
Remember that time you were teaching Sunday school on Zoom and a cat entered the screen?
Moving from in-person to virtual spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic has boosted engagement and outreach for many churches, but the transition came with a variety of growing pains, especially around technology and online etiquette. And the challenges were experienced by…
What we’ve lost
The losses we’ve experienced due to coronavirus are both horribly easy to count — 465,000 dead in the United States alone — and yet invisibly painful. Especially for communities of faith, the relational losses often go unreported. Yet in conversation…
Author dispels small thinking behind small-church myths
A lot of Christians share the assumption that the bigger the church, the more blessed it is. One of the biggest flaws in that assumption is that it’s poor theology. “God is not more concentrated because there are more of…
What if we ‘promoted’ in adult Sunday school again?
Decades ago, even among churches that retained adult Sunday school, we adults stopped promoting. More accurately, we adults refused to keep promoting. We put down our feet and said we would not move any more. We wanted to stay where we were.
Are Bible apps sapping the life from our faith?
By Jeff Brumley The Bible at your fingertips. A worship service in the palm of your hand and prayers and devotions streaming into your ears. The advent of the app has made all of that possible for any Christian with…
Churches and water balloons
Sitting in a dunking booth at a children’s water day is a wake up. Cold water splashed on me as children enjoyed hitting the target to dump water on the preacher. We raised money for a playground and we had…