Maintaining a healthy church community
Where will Satan most likely attack your church? Your community.
James Emery White
The truth about grace and truth
Jesus offered neither a feel-good theology, nor legalistic attitudes of harsh condemnation. He came bringing grace and truth at their best and most compelling.
First things first
Have you heard what Brown University is asking applicants for the Class of 2017 as an essay prompt? French novelist Anatole France wrote: “An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don’t.”…
Bucket list
Have you ever heard the phrase “bucket list?” It means the things you want to do before you before you “kick the bucket.” I recently read an article titled “The Before You’re Forty Bucketlist.” It was a decent list, full of things both spiritual (read the bible) and temporal (watch every film on the AFI top 100 list). It got me thinking…
Unplug your family
My wife and I were in a restaurant having lunch the other day with one of our sons, and couldn’t help but notice a nearby family: a mom, dad, two boys, and a daughter. The daughter was middle school age, and clearly in contemporary middle school mode: ear buds securely in place, staring off into space. Every aspect of her demeanor made…
What does “Thy Kingdom Come” even mean?
It’s a simple idea, and a deeply biblical one, woven into the very fabric of the prayer Jesus taught us to pray. “Thy kingdom come.” Praying kingdom come, for God’s will to be done, His kingdom to come…what would that mean? “What would stand and what would fall?” reflects Frederick Buechner. “Who would be welcomed in and who…
Is Google God?
Is Google God? Columnist Thomas Friedman posed this question in The New York Times in June of 2003. Quoting the vice-president of a Wi-Fi provider, Friedman writes that “Google, combined with Wi-Fi, is a little bit like God. God is wireless, God is everywhere and God sees and knows everything. Throughout history, people connected…
The miracle of the happening
Few things get our attention as much as speed. We want the fastest computers, the fastest routes to work, the fastest ways to get rich, the fastest….well, everything. This is why the fastest growing churches often get attention, but the slow and steady often do not. Or immediate healings through prayer, as opposed to slower…
If churches shut down
People across the United States are finding out what it means for their life when the government shuts down. From this, a new hashtag on Twitter has started: #IfIShutDown. Dentists are tweeting empty dentist chairs, newspaper editors blank sheets of paper, and Moms and Dads messy kitchens and unsupervised children. But what…
The Theory of Desirable Difficulty
There are a handful of authors that I have been so consistently impressed by that I feel compelled to read whatever they produce. In fiction, there’s C.J. Sansom. In terms of business or leadership, there’s Jim Collins. And in a genre of writing hard to describe is Malcolm Gladwell. His typical approach is to popularize research,…
