As a child I remember my mother, an elder in our Presbyterian church, preparing Communion. I remember going with her to buy bread a few days before so it would not be too soft to cut in little squares and…
One more day: Resetting the smile on our faces
A friend at the YMCA where I work has some struggles with his hip. Even so, he is regularly in the gym building muscle, the pain notwithstanding. He smiles on the way into the gym even though he is hurting….
Must our quests for liberty be mutually exclusive?
There’s a strange tension in the minds of many people between the desires for independence and community. It comes up often in conversations about churches and denominations. A church may want to be independent yet participate in the community of…
‘Baby, you’re a firework!’
Do you think arriving at 9 p.m. for fireworks that begin at 9:25 would be early enough? If you do, then the New York Police Department would like to have a word with you. We could have guaranteed ourselves seats…
To renew the church, let’s redefine ‘Christian community’
The decline of the church in the Western world has been the subject of extensive study and speculation. Often, we focus our attention on the motivations of those who have left Christianity. In this season following Pentecost, however, perhaps we…
Finding the gospel amid a ‘churchgoing bust’
In a recent Atlantic essay titled “The True Cost of the Churchgoing Bust,” columnist Derek Thompson writes that “more Americans today have ‘converted’ out of religion than have converted to all forms of Christianity, Judaism and Islam combined. No faith’s…
Find the good and praise it
I would not have noticed them on my own. I would have scanned the skies with my binoculars for hours without success. A sighting would have remained elusive. Fortunately, I had help seeing what I otherwise would not have perceived….
If getting voters to the polls isn’t government’s job, maybe it is the work of the church
Tim O’Hare has taken limited government to a new self-defeating level. The Tarrant County, Texas, county judge (chief executive of the county government) declared last week: “I don’t believe it’s the county government’s responsibility to try to get more people…
A baby on the doorstep at Bubba-Doo’s
Shakira came into Bubba-Doo’s last Thursday like she so often does, somehow looking extra focused on that day. Shakira is a strong young woman. She always moves with purpose and keeps a lot of things going in her busy life….