Why We Shouldn’t Join a Church A few decades ago American Express unveiled the tagline: “Membership has its privileges.” Their ads implied that great benefits awaited those who qualified to carry one of their exclusive cards. To start, there was a high annual fee and, as I understand, minimal annual levels of usage for their […]
The Wave of Disunity Continues to This Day Reformation Day is one October 31. It celebrates the Protestant Reformation. I love the Reformation even though it was actually a spiritual revolution against the established status quo. (But perhaps that’s part of its allure.) After all, the root of Protestant is protest. Though the actual reformation […]
Discussing Church 19 With no website and a phone line that doesn’t work, we assume this church, listed only in a computer-compiled online directory, either no longer exists or never did. The church sign in front of their building is the only reason we know the service time. Consider these four discussion questions about Church […]
Aligning Ourselves with Like-Minded People Results in Isolation and Division An issue in the corporate world is business silos. This is where a department or unit puts up walls that separate them from the rest of the company. The leaders of these silos of information and function do so to maintain control and assure them […]
Discussing Church 15 Their website says we’ll find “a laid-back, coffeehouse atmosphere” with “an unconventional setting where a blend of people, of all ages, from all walks of life, can gather and feel at home.” This is my kind of church. It’s an outlier church in a mainline denomination. Consider these four discussion questions about […]
Discussing Church 8 This week we visit our third new church. It’s a grand experiment, one quite radical from their conservative denominational roots. Consider these four discussion questions about Church #8: 1. A greeter welcomes us and explains what to expect during our visit. How can you help visitors at your church know what will […]
A Personal Story of Growing in Faith and Action [This personal essay first appeared in The Transformation Project: A West Michigan Word Weavers Anthology.] A caterpillar turns into a butterfly; a tadpole becomes a frog. People can change too. We call it transformation. Here’s my story. 1. The Bible Matters We moved between fourth and […]
Disunity Today Hurts the Cause of Jesus In our consideration of words that appear only in the New Testament, we come across Pharisees and Sadducees. Two related words are Zealot and Nazarene, along with Essene. Pharisees Appearing ninety-nine times in the New Testament, the Pharisees receive the most attention. They were a righteous group of […]
Our Actions and Our Words Determine Our Reputation In the post “They’ll know we are Christians by our love” we talked about the importance of our Christian witness. This is best accomplished by our love and our unity. Unfortunately, the world rarely sees our love and unity. Instead we model hate and disagreement. That’s what […]
When We Focus on Theology We Miss the Point of Following Jesus A lot of people today work hard to form a correct theology. Almost every church has a theology, be it formal or implicit. They use theology to determine who’s in and who’s out. Every seminary has its own theology as well. If you […]