Things we’ve heard once too often
♪Have you ever heard a so-called “truth” once too often? Here’s one I heard recently: “being on mission is not just about going overseas as a missionary; it’s also staying home to serve God wherever you are.” Who could argue? But suddenly I had heard this one too many times. Instead of a timely truth I now saw a donkey my generation loved to flog.
Tough love or true love?
♪We often hear about how angry and cruel public discussion has become today. But we often hear excuses for our bad manners. One excuse is to claim that, far from being rude, we are only showing “tough love.” Much cruelty is justified by those two words.
Believe in the Trinity and you shall be saved
♪ Do I have to believe in the Trinity to be saved, really? Listen to the thunder of the Athanasian Creed from the early church: “Whoever desires to be saved should above all hold to the catholic [historic Christian] faith. Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally.
Pastors pastor women
I state the obvious: As a male pastor, I should be a pastor to women. It should not be said of my ministry that the men got good teaching, mentoring, and compassionate attention, but not so much the women. Female pastors may have these challenges too, but here I am focusing on men.
Can God fit in you?
♪ A prayer from the African pastor Augustine in the 4th century has stirred my thought for some time: God, “you were closer to me than I am to myself.” If you place that prayer alongside Paul’s prayer that the Ephesians be “filled [with] … all the fulness of God” (Ephesians 3:19), you quickly find yourself in a bottomless sea of wonder and prayer.
Convert, how is that working for you?
♪ Have you discovered an exciting new theology or even joined a new church and then become an evangelist sharing your news with friends near and on Facebook?
The church has no “leadership” crisis
♪ WHEN I ENTERED the academic world recently, I noticed changes in Christian education I had not been aware of. I had not realized education had become so focused on leadership development. Across Canada’s Christian colleges there are now academic degrees in leadership, reams of Christian books written on leadership, and faculty whose sole role is to teach leadership development.
The Time Traveller’s Question
Imagine an EMC time-traveller from the 1920s visiting us today. Would they find any clue that, of all the churches in town, this was their descendant?
The ancient global treasure of EMC faith
We’re sitting on a gold mine. The world is gasping for it, and we have it, though we don’t always grasp its biblical beauty.
Intellectual Moms and Dads
Intellectuals have unique challenges when it comes to raising their children for Jesus. Why is this? I write this from hard-earned experience, both in my own childhood and in my parenting.
Pedal To The Metal Love
Do you realize how unusual God’s love is? If I could really hold this in the depths of my soul, I would be a joy-filled person. This is it: God loves naturally.
When baptism becomes works righteousness
I must consent to it, but baptism is not essentially about me acting. I am being baptized in the name of Christ. Christ asks each of us, “Can I have you?” When we answer “yes,” the church as the representative of Christ takes us and pours the water of baptism over our heads.
A handy (and bad) way to win an argument
I occasionally hear myself make this mistake in an argument: When I describe my own view, I describe an ideal, a vision for how we should think and live. But when I describe my opponent’s view, I describe how that view is lived out in real life.
Selling your soul, a dime a day
What are the tiny compromises by which a logger, nurse, mechanic, or masseuse gradually abandons their integrity? With the help of Terry Hiebert and Terry Kaufman, professors here at SBC, I offer such a list for pastors because that’s what I know best.
Robinson Crusoe Christians
How many supports do you need to keep you following Jesus? What if God would rather show off, in your life, how he can bring a saint home with almost no provisions?
Parent them into the kingdom
How much does one say to an eighteen-year-old about choices? My tendency is to say very little, until I shouldn’t say anything, and then I say a lot. But three things I heard lately make me wonder.
Who is deconstructing your faith?
What makes some of us cynical about this “deconstruction” trend is that what emerges can often be predicted: it’s what culture now finds digestible about Christianity—which isn’t much.
Disciples are never losers
God does not finally expect you to make any sacrifice for him. There is no cost to following Jesus, at the end of the day.
He’s a tough act to follow
Jesus has always been a tough person to follow. The church has never mastered the art of imitating the whole Jesus. Its easy to say “Jesus” and then change the subject to something more manageable. Why does Jesus make himself so hard to follow?
If I Died Today
I recently had my 50th birthday. Before I got out of bed that morning, I thought of something. I imagined to myself that before I ever existed, God had a conversation with my non-existent self and said…