Hidden Agendas

9 But there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great. 10 They all paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.” 11 And they paid …

Churches and Racial Seperation

I am hesitant to write this post namely because I cannot control how people will respond to it.  I also want to admit there is a host of history I am aware of but am not trained in that precludes the issues we will address in this post. However, I am struggling with the ramifications …

The Dirty Seven and the Church 3 – Lying Tongue

We are continuing a series of how people perceive the church and using Proverbs 6:16-19 (7 Deadly Sins) as a framework for our discussion. 16 There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are detestable to him: 17 haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, 18 a heart that devises wicked …

Youth Ministry 6.3 #31 – Philip Jenkins (Unity)

You will enjoy this one!

I got your back…

Learned a valuable lesson last week when my computer crashed due to a virus: always have your files backed-up.  I decided one day to purchase one year of off-site back-up from MOZY in case some nerd sent a virus to my computer and caused it to crash.  Well it seems that nerds are hard at …

Get to know you column in bulletins…

Seems like a no-brainer but I am having a "get to know you column" in my space for a bulletin.  This certainly is not a unique idea but so often I have people at my church ask me, "Who is so-and-so that was just baptized?"  My response is, "Are you kidding?  You have been attending …

Memphoplin (Part 1)

For the first time in a long time I have the opportunity to blog.  I was out of pocket for most of June with back-to-back mission trips and we have VBS this week so my blogging has been pathetic at-best.  What I wanted to do is share a few stories about what we did as …

An Open Letter – Part 3 (Preachers)

Dear Preachers, First, I want you to know how much we appreciate your diligent study that takes place every single week as your prepare 2 lessons, 2 bible classes and various lessons in between.  On top of that you visit people all over the congregation in times of trouble, sickness, spiritual laxity and then there are …

An Open Letter – Part 2 (Elders)

Dear Elders, First I want to say thank you for providing so many youth ministers with opportunities to grow and learn in their ministries.  You have stuck with many in the trenches and many of you are the reasons why youth ministers are still thriving.  You show up at their activities, skits and you even …

Wrestling with “Love Wins” 1

Perhaps no book has created such a firestorm in evangelical Christianity than the book Love Wins by Rob Bell.  From unabashedly scathing reviews to uneducated praise this book has certainly received plenty of publicity (much to HarperOne's approval).  I did a Google search with the query "Love Wins reviews" and 2.5 million results came up. …