When a congregation welcomes a new pastor, it is an exciting time for both the congregation and the minister. To maximize this new beginning, it is important to prepare spiritually, cognitively and emotionally for a new chapter. Once a call…
Let’s make America a place of welcome for displaced people
Being a refugee is not just what happened to you. It’s also who you’ve become as a result of what happened to you. Seventy years ago, the United States was one of the signatories to a historic legal document, the…
The church is losing its way
Statistics for 2021 from across multiple Christian denominations reveal a decrease in church membership and active participation, according to the parachurch organization Exponential and the Pew Research Center. This decline can be attributed, in large part, to the increasing number…
What should you do if a sex offender wants to attend your church?
When someone who is a registered sex offender shows up at church and wants to participate — even in such a simple way as attending worship — what should church leaders do? There is a five-step process pastors and lay…
Lady Liberty beckons us to ask hard questions in these days
In the year 1883, Poet Emma Lazarus wrote her sonnet, “The New Colossus,” to raise money for the pedestal on which the Statue of Liberty would stand. The sonnet ends with the poignant, passionate words that were added to the…
After spiritual trauma, finding welcome in church once more
Growing up, the church always was a safe place for me. I grew up in the same small-town church my entire life, and a lot of our life revolved around the church. Sundays were filled with Sunday school and the…
Maybe we’ll just keep on preaching these five sermons
In 20 years, my wife and I have preached about 950 sermons from the pulpit of Park Road Baptist Church. (Amy and I have been co-pastors in Charlotte since 2000.) We’re both manuscript preachers, and we try to hold a…
Decades of life with the ‘Lost Boys’ from South Sudan: Charlotte church loves their neighbors as themselves
Martha Kearse knew the young men were out of their element as soon as she saw them milling in bewilderment at the grocery store’s vast array of options. Very tall, very thin and very confused, they stood out like flies in a glass of milk. Kearse suspected they were some of the Lost Boys of South Sudan that she’d seen featured on the TV news magazine 60 Minutes.
Photo Gallery: Lost Boys in photos
All photos taken in this photo gallery of the Lost Boys are by Norman Jameson. In this ‘Welcoming the Stranger’ series, we learn what happens when one church decides to live up to its covenant of “We will…