I was 14 years old when my church hired a new senior pastor. He was a bit of a young upstart who wanted to make some changes. One change was that women would no longer serve in leadership roles. Some people left the church right then and there, but my family didn’t.
EXCERPT: If Church Worship Makes You Uncomfortable, Maybe That’s a Good Thing
The bodily motions of worship—singing, raising your hands, kneeling, closing your eyes—shape us significantly, even when we don’t feel like they are.
EXCERPT: Does Justification Still Matter?
Jesus says, “Come to me . . . and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). We have good news for our busy culture. Proving yourself is just another term for justifying your- self. And we have good news of justification by grace.
Why the Church Needs Imagination
In our modern age of iPhones and data plans, when WiFi seems more vital than oxygen, a constant stream of media washes over us. Connecting to Jesus on Sunday becomes just one point of contact, lost among a million tweets, text messages, and YouTube videos.
Reclaiming Sex in the Church
As an unmarried believer, I still find it amazing that I am to avoid sex all of my life only to have the freedom to enjoy it the minute I’m married. What a mind shift! It’s no wonder that for so many newly married couples, even showing each other their naked bodies stirs up feelings of embarrassment.
How to Thrive in the Church When You’re Misunderstood
Most conservative churches have a definition of “normal” that my friends and I can’t live up it up. It can leave us feeling confused and isolated, because most of us didn’t choose our unorthodox demographics, we just found our lives playing out on the single, gay, childless, artistic, or job-wandering stage. So, how do we navigate life in the church when we don’t quite fit in?
Letting the Spirit Speak
Where these churches err is in failing to hear the Spirit. And that’s not just a church-thing. That’s where most of us get it wrong in our own lives, too.
Changing how we measure success in ministry
If we want to know if a particular ministry is being “successful” we should ask the following question: What signs of the kingdom have we seen or experienced during the past week? All other measurements of success fall subservient to that single question.
The Church’s Role on Halloween
If you grew up in the North American church, especially in the 70s and 80s, you might have some fear and trepidation at the thought of celebrating Halloween. When I was small, my parents only knew Halloween as an American tradition of dressing up and going from house to house asking for candy. It was […]
The “Hymn” is Back “In”
These days, people are talking about “hymns” in the same way they talk about things that are “vintage”. They think of hymns as being more authentic and countercultural — mostly because they’ve been around longer than ten years. But do they really understand what hymns are or where they came from? Probably not. I have no beef […]
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