Designed to Teach Illiterate Kids to Read, Sunday School Needs to Reclaim its Vision of Community Service Quick, what is the purpose of Sunday School? Your answer is likely that Sunday School is intended to teach children about God. Yet, that is not why Sunday School was first started. Sunday School was launched as a […]
Two weeks ago I wrote that a spiritual discipline is something we do to draw closer to God or to honor him. To be of value we need to do this willingly with joy and in anticipation. I gave 17 possible disciplines to consider. Going to church wasn’t on the list. Should going to church […]
I’ve heard several thousand sermons in my life. I can remember parts from about six of them. Not the whole thing, just parts. Seldom does the recollection of one message even make it to the next Sunday. More likely I’ve forgotten it by the time I make it home—or even to the parking lot. That’s […]
Consider How We Use Technology For a long time I resisted getting a smartphone. It’s not that I’m technologically adverse; I love technology. And it’s not that I didn’t see how beneficial it would be to have internet access anytime, anywhere. It’s that I worried about how having a smartphone might affect my interactions with […]
My wife and I attended the an-out-of-town wedding. We know both the bride and the groom well, having walked with them towards this joyous day. They met while attending seminary. The overall ceremony was typical of most Christian weddings, but with enough subtle variations to give it added spiritual significance. Without singing a song or […]
Institutional Church or Organic Church There are two types of church in the Bible, and there are two types of church today. In the Old Testament, there is the temple. At the temple, the priests lead worship and guide the people, as instructed by God through Moses. The Levites provide support to keep things functioning […]
The Myth of Self-Sufficiency The ideal in the United States is personal self-sufficiency. But this is a myth, an unattainable pursuit that will eventually leave us broken or alone—or both. John Donne understood this. He said “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.” We need others; […]
In this blog, I write a lot about the church. My comments are mostly critical. This isn’t because I hate the church. It’s because I love the church. Really I do. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t bother to point out how church could be better. The church often falls short of what it could […]
I haven’t gone to church for the past two weeks. First, I was sick and stayed home to sleep. Last week, my wife and I headed off for a church that met in an office complex, but the doors were locked. I’ll save that story for later. I wasn’t bothered about not being in church […]
Many years ago, when public access to the internet was in its infancy and dialup was the only means to connect, I pondered the idea of church online. The World Wide Web did not exist then, so I considered if Usenet (online discussion boards), file sharing, and email could cobble together a church experience. I […]