As if the American church isn’t divided enough, it appears we’re about to roll back the clock 50 years on abortion rights and throw more jet fuel on the culture war bonfires consuming our congregations. For some churches and pastors,…
On this Mother’s Day, will churches act more like Rome or Christ?
I’ve never been as welcomed at a church as when I was pregnant. At the time I was pregnant with my first child, we were looking for a church home in Dayton, Ohio. When my husband and I would approach…
Eastertide: The outing of the church
We have entered Eastertide, the liturgical season beginning with Easter and ending 50 days later on Pentecost (also known as Whitsunday). The formulation of this season parallels the period in Judaism between the first day of Pesach (Passover, marking their…
Changing Our Mind, 25,000 sales later
I learned this week that sales of my 2014 book Changing Our Mind are just about to cross 25,000, apparently very rare in the book business. This becomes the occasion for my column this week. Long-time readers of Baptist News…
10 life lessons from Holy Week
Our reflective Lenten journey is complete and our celebrative journey into Eastertide has begun. But before we leave Holy Week too quickly, there are a few takeaways from the stories we encountered we need to bookmark, a few lessons for…
COVID, Holy Week and God’s consolations
I lost a friend I highly respected to COVID. Our church family has prayed through the illnesses of members, friends and family, observed deaths and then, of course, there were the illnesses and losses due to complications of COVID never…
Maybe the church needs pastors who aren’t entrepreneurs
I once was a “professional Christian.” Like David Ramsey, (who recently authored “What Could the Church Learn from Amazon?”), I also stepped away from the church, and I agree with him that part of the problem was “the pressures that…
This nation needs a church
I have an argument that sounds idealistic, naïve, even triumphalist, but that only serves to increase my determination: The nation needs a church. I still believe the church matters and that we have a role to play that is the…
What could the church learn from Amazon?
In 1994, Jeff Bezos left a lucrative job as an investment banker on Wall Street to start a company selling books on a new technology called the internet. Two years later, I left a non-lucrative career in ministry and entered…