Category: Church
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The Value of Ministries of Mercy
It seems that Micah 6.8 is quite clear and straight-forward in its summary of living as God’s People in this world: He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you?To do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. Yet, for some reason, many Christians, and too many churches,…
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10 Minutes After Church
What do you usually do immediately after your Sunday morning church service ends? If you’re like most of church-going humanity, you probably have a routine. Upon the final “Amen”, you arise from your regular spot and your body follows a subconscious script. You may go to the nursery to pick up a child, maybe you…
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Empty Pews: 10 Days When Church Attendance is Most Down
According to Thom Rainer‘s research, the 10 Sundays each year when church attendance is most noticably down are: Father’s Day. The Sunday after Thanksgiving day. Memorial Day weekend Sunday. Labor Day weekend Sunday. The Sundays before and after Christmas. The Sunday nearest the Fourth of July. The Sunday nearest to New Year’s Day. Time changes:…
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12 Rules For Promoting Harmony Among Church Members
Thomas Smyth, long-time pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Charleston, South Carolina, during the 19th Century, gave several practical directions in a manual for the members of his congregation (found in Volume 5 of his Complete Works). The following are twelve rules for promoting harmony among church members. These appear to have been taken out of…
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Leaky Buckets: On Church Attrition
Thom Rainer, Founder and CEO of Church Answers, recently noted: I’m still not sure what to make of this analysis. I am in no way doubting the veracity. I also realize that these stats represent a national average, and that there will be some varaince from community to community. For instance, where I live, in…
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The Responsibility of the Church
Lesslie Newbigin, in his book The Reunion of the Church, challenged the Church to be on mission: “The responsibility of the church is to declare to each generation what is the faith… This is always a fresh task in every generation… No verbal statement can be produced which relieves the Church of the responsibility continually…
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What We Celebrate At Christmas Is Why We Go to Church
As Christmas Day falls on a Sunday this year, church leaders across the country are making decisions about whether their respective congregation will hold services or forgo them. As one who holds a firm resolve about the prudency, even the appropriateness, of arbitrarily canceling services on any Sunday, no matter how noble-sounding the reasoning, I…
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4 Questions Worth Exploring
In this short video (8 minutes), Tim Keller offers four questions he would like to see his denomination (which is also my denomination) – the Presbyterian Church in America – explore in the coming years. The four questions are: How do we create a culture in which pastors pray like they should? How do we…
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What’s the Problem?
Writing in 1974, Francis Schaeffer suggested: “The central problem of our age is not liberalism or modernism, nor the old Roman Catholicism or the new Roman Catholicism, nor the threat of communism, nor even the threat of rationalism and the monolithic consensus which surrounds us. All these are dangerous but not the primary threat. The…
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Christianity in Our Current Cultural Context
In March 2019, noted church leader Tim Keller delivered this keynote address at The Hendricks Center Gala. In this address Keller identifies some of the ways that ministering in our present cultural context may be different from ministering in the past. Whether one agrees with Keller’s assessments or not, all would be wise to at…
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Believing & Belonging
I found these words from John Stonestreet to be on target, well grounded, and a great truth around which we would do well to periodically re-orient our priorities and calendars: The central practice of the Christian life, at least biblically speaking, is gathering together as Christ’s body for corporate worship, for hearing the Word, and…
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Prodigal Church
My thanks to Jared Wilson, not only for another thoughtful book, but for expressing many of the very things I would like to express. In his 2015 book, Prodigal Church: A Gentle Manifesto Against the Status Quo, Wilson has written a book I wish I had written.
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The Benedict Option is Not Really an Option
Since I already have some pretty definite opinions about the book, I thought maybe I ought to read it. My preliminary thoughts about Rod Dreher‘s The Benedict Option is that it offers a good analysis of the present states of both culture and Church, but Dreher’s solution seems more imposed than necessary or biblical. In…
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Race & the Church RVA: Why Do We All Look the Same?
The second gathering of Race and the Church in Richmond, Virginia took place on Saturday morning March 12. The theme was: Why Do We All Look the Same? A Cultural & Theological Analysis of Underlying Church Dynamics; featuring speaker Dr. Alexander Jun. Alexander Jun is a professor at Azusa Pacific University, a TED Talk speaker,…
