Something Is Wrong If I Wake Up Monday Morning Unprepared to Embrace My Week The Old Testament talks a lot about the Sabbath, the final day of the week. God—through the Old Testament writers, especially Moses—tells us to keep the Sabbath holy and to rest. But this is an Old Testament thing, and Jesus came […]
May My Clothes Never Keep a Visitor from Encountering God My parents, especially my mom, taught me to dress up for church. That’s what people did when I was a kid, and I didn’t question it—even though I’m still looking for a biblical command to do so. Never mind that I’m sure my parents spent […]
The Bible Offers Little Support for a Minister to Preach a Sermon to Us at Church Many changes occurred in church practices because of the Protestant Reformation some 500 years ago. One of those changes adjusted the emphasis of the Sunday service. The reformers had concern over the focus of Sunday gatherings being on the […]
Don’t Be a Slave to the Law or to Legalism, but Be Free to Accept Sunday As a Gift from God The fourth of God’s Ten Commandments tells us to not work on the seventh day of the week and to keep it holy (Exodus 20:8-11). Nowadays, some people make an attempt to follow this […]
Adjusting to an Ever Varying Sunday Schedule When my wife and I started our journey of visiting fifty-two churches in a year, one variable seemed trivial at first but had wide ramifications. That item was service times. With church starting times as early as 8 a.m. and as late as 11:30 a.m., our Sundays looked […]
I don’t listen to music much anymore. I find it more distracting than helpful. But when I did listen, my preferences fell a bit out of mainstream. The band, One Bad Pig, proves my point. Let’s just say their music is an acquired taste. (They were an 80s, Christian, punk, screamo band—and I liked them!) […]
For some people, Sunday is a day like any other, while for others, their regimented list of dos and don’ts reduces it to boring idleness. I want neither extreme, hoping for a happy middle ground. Yet what that looks like eludes me. From a practical perspective, I need a periodic break from the routine; from […]