Recently, I wrote an opinion piece outlining six lessons I have learned on my interfaith journey. I concluded by stating it was really the way Jesus treated those who were different, the “outsiders,” that prompted my acceptance and celebration of…
50 years later, I’m still embarrassed to admit what a stranger at church taught me about being welcome
I’ve been interested in Mary Magdalene lately for some unknown reason. Hers is a fascinating story, and to be honest, everything we know about her would barely fill a small paragraph. Here it is: Mary Magdalene was a Jewish woman…
What The Bear should teach us about the church and genuine acceptance
It feels like I just left here. This is the first thought stumbling through my mind as I listen to the deadbolt release, allowing me to enter the dark room I vaguely remember departing just a few hours ago. I…
Study finds congregational leaders report LGBTQ conversations are worth the pain
Engaging in transparent discussion about LGBTQ inclusion is a painful process for congregations but almost always worth it in the end, according to one of the most extensive surveys of congregational practices yet undertaken. A research team from Baylor University’s…
How a transgender woman found acceptance in a church shunned by the SBC
When Kim Cornwall moved from Minnesota to Georgia, she reached out to a number of churches to see if they would welcome her. Only one responded. That congregation, Towne View Baptist Church in Kennesaw, Ga., is now her church home….
The troubled waters of sexual diversity: Willful blindness
This is the fourth in a series of articles on sexual diversity. C.S. Lewis referred to his atheism prior to his conversion to Christianity as “willful blindness.” This description undoubtedly describes my state of spiritual blindness before I began seeing…
Choosing the underdog
Growing up, I was short and stocky, which made me a less-than-prime candidate for athletics. In seventh grade, I wanted to play football like my friends. I was too small to be a lineman and too slow to be in…
How God used Jay Bakker to teach me about race and loving all people
I remember it almost like yesterday when the new kid walked into the large youth group I attended at First Baptist Church of Orlando. As the new kid walked in, he stood out not just to me but to others…
Here’s how to make Mother’s Day more honest at church
As I sat around a table with a group of women, all of whom were either clergy or clergy wives, we began discussing the difficulties of creating a life around ministry. We all had different stories, different moments in our…
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…
What if more churches were like Waffle House?
As a religion reporter, my hope in the local church sometimes feels hopeless. We seem to have drifted so far away from the description of the early church found in Acts 2:42-47. There, we are told “they devoted themselves to…
We need more but different churches
The number of church closures continues to rise. According to a study published by Lifeway Research last May, about 4,500 churches closed their doors in 2019 while only 3,000 churches were started. This is a shift from 2014 when Lifeway…