If you are re-evaluating your relationship with church, you are not alone. As we move from online worship and distanced activities to in-person church life, many decision moments come our way. This return to in-person church activities is a major…
No church wants the Moby Dick of ministers
They call me Erica. Well, no they don’t. The folks at Buechel Park Baptist Church actually call me Pastor Erica, and the more formal members refer to me as Reverend Whitaker. We’ve been on the seas of ministries together for…
Having COVID reentry anxiety? You’re not alone
In the last few weeks, I have been living a fully vaccinated, post-pandemic life. I have traveled, gone to the movies, eaten in restaurants without a mask. It feels like I am doing something just slightly rebellious but enjoyable, like…
I’m an infectious disease doctor: Here’s why pastors need to lead their flocks to be vaccinated
A local church is experiencing an outbreak of COVID-19. This in and of itself is not rant-worthy; it’s sad, but it hardly sets them apart. Except, as with most of the patients hospitalized nationwide with COVID, these patients are not…
My life as a bad baseball player and why you should get vaccinated
As a kid, I was a bad baseball player and always got stuck out in right field, where there’s less action happening and less chance I could mess up an important play. In these days of COVID vaccination drives, you…
Tennessee officials ask for help tracing possible COVID cluster to SBC annual meeting
Participants in the Southern Baptist Convention’s in-person annual meeting in Nashville in mid-June are asked to notify Tennessee health officials if they came down with COVID-19 after attending the enormous gathering. A small but notable cluster of coronavirus infections has…
Worldwide church needs global approach to mental illness, psychologist says
Baptist churches must work together and with other religious and civic organizations to have a positive impact on the mental illness pandemic that is destroying lives and communities around the world, a Jamaican psychologist said on the opening day of…
Lessons learned during the pandemic as a parent who found joy in the desert
Months ago, we sat around the wooden table in our booth, enjoying our food and reminding our kids to be mindful of the other customers around us. With five kids under the age of 10, it isn’t an everyday experience…
Churches adapted rapidly to the pandemic, but there’s a mental health cost to that success
The rapid and creative responses churches made to address the COVID-19 pandemic created significant stresses on church leadership and laity both, one of the nation’s leading religion researchers said in a recent webinar. “The staggering amount of change that (occurred…