The early days of the Baptist people in England were marked by disagreements. The disagreements were not necessarily loud and angry…but they did generate some debates and pamphlets. At one point in the early 1800s a new hymnal was written that did not include some of the older Baptist...
It is hard adjusting, I’ll admit it. The situation with Covid-19 is marginalizing the church experience. We are a long way from the 3 or 4 church service routine that some of us grew up with! At this point we meet once a week for over an hour. That’s a big change! On the other hand...
"but these things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah..." (John 20:30) We take for granted that things are written down. So much is written today that we have difficulty discerning texts that are of value and those that are not. The phrase "fake news"...
Juneteenth. It sounds strange because it has not benefitted by being embraced by popular culture. But if there was ever a holiday that made sense, this would be it. I mean c’mon, we “celebrate” Halloween. But this date actually has meaning. My experience has been that white...
I knew I needed to write a blog about this. But…how? I mean, what has not been said already? And what is controversial here? Who defends the practice of what happened to George Floyd? I think no one. And by “no one,” I realize there is some warped person who would try to...
I mentioned Sunday while preaching that I sometimes like to watch documentaries about World War 2. That was a perfect time to mention that it was Memorial Day…but I was preoccupied with the details of a unique Sunday of re-gathering. Sunday, I watched a few more of those...
It is fairly well known that the Christian concept of “hope” is profoundly different than the historic or secular version. We use the word in its secular sense every day: “I hope this coronavirus goes away soon!” We have no clue how soon it will happen, but it is our...
I recently read an article that struck me. It made a comment that was not unusual, but it struck me. It was about a church that could not record their Sunday services in their beautiful building because of a power outage. The church “could not imagine having services without their...
Stats about Evangelicalism indicate we have some thinking to do...
We have all been horrified at recent mass shootings, and stunned that in 2019 some of them are racially motivated. There are days when the news makes me feel like we are once again in the 1960s and that little progress has been made. I recently read an article in which an author suggested...