Finding ourselves in the season of Lent forces question of how our practices, our bodily, lived experiences, encourage or distract our spirituality. These two titles explore these questions. The Life of the Body, Valerie Hess and Lane M. Arnold (IVP)…
TRENDING: Past the in-fighting?
My friend and mentor Mike Breen is an apostolic leader with keen global eyes. So when he recently issued his “State of the Evangelical Union,” it had my full attention. We’ll explore key themes from it in the next four…
VITAL SIGNS: The surrender principle
I’ve always been struck by the phrase from Luke 9: 51, 53 which describes Jesus as “turning his face toward Jerusalem.” It implies a resoluteness of intent and a high degree of commitment to a divine agenda. Nothing is going…
OPINION: Finish it!
In a live performance there is always the possibility of messing up. Anyone who has been on stage in front of people has experienced that moment when the next words don’t come out or the sounds that do are all…
OPINION: Ash Wednesday and re-membering
Long before Thomas Wolfe wrote You Can't Go Home Again, Jesus of Nazareth stood in his hometown synagogue and said, “A prophet is never welcomed in his hometown.” Both of these statements make sense. To be able to speak prophetically…
OUT LOUD
“Jesus was about ethics. The Sermon on the Mount was about ethics. I don’t think you can believe in Jesus and not believe in ethics.” Roger Olson The scholar was recently named to fill the Foy Valentine Endowed Professorship in…
OPINION: Paynter’s election is splendid news for CBF
How is Suzii Paynter’s selection to lead the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship great news? Let me count the ways. Before that, some background: CBF’s executive coordinator search committee nominated Paynter to lead the nationwide Baptist organization. If confirmed by the CBF…
LEADERSHIP LINK: Stewardship in February?
Since the budgets of most churches run concurrently with the calendar year, the middle of February is a good time to check how receipts are tracking with expectations. Are the offerings and the anticipated receipts matching pretty well? If not,…
OPINION: For the walking dead
On Friday, my friend Tori Lane held a benefit to raise money for HEART, a program of healing for victims of sexual assault. As a poet and visual artist, Tori thinks in metaphors and striking images. As a performer, she…
OPINION: The gun-powdered gospel
It was a cold winter morning sometime before my 10th birthday. I distinctly remember the anticipation as I listened to the sound of leaves crunching with every step of my new boots. I knew where we were going; I had…
TRENDING: Lessons from Argentina, part 3: The humble
Time in Argentina will give you a snapshot of the world that is coming to North America. The trend will be that our culture becomes increasingly multicultural (and multilingual) and highly urbanized. Like the current global south, the North American…
VITAL SIGNS: Why your church building-use policy matters
I know firsthand how utterly boring and laborious creating a building-use policy can be. Every church I have ever served has entered into a major building project. The debate around building use has been a constant. It also has evolved…