The unfamiliar beauty drew us in. Our eyes scanned the vast expanse of green out the airplane window as we approached our landing in Kalispell, Montana. It was the end of a long trip. The previous week was spent holed up in a coffee shop with J. I. Packer and camped out in the living […]
Lent Reading GuideWhat follows is a 40-day Lent reading plan to read Beloved Dust. This 40 day period excludes Sundays, where the focus of your time will be on the movement of the Lenten season to the Cross and Resurrection. We encourage you to follow lectionary readings for this season alongside your reading of Beloved […]
There is a scene in the movie “Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas” where the Grinch is up on his mountain shouting down at Whoville. With an open phonebook in his hand, he goes down the line of Whoville residents to declare his utter disdain for them all. The Grinch’s hatred of the Whos […]
“What do you do?”“I am a pastor.”Onboard an airplane or waiting in line at the local coffee shop the response is met with little fan-fair. The profession simply does not have the same cache or intrigue as say…“I am a doctor” or “I am a writer.”We pastors find ourselves in a professional culture. It is […]
What songs should we choose for the worship service? What should we do for our fall campaign? How many minutes should the sermon be? How should we organize the chairs in the worship center?The list could go on.Pastors are constantly faced with practical questions. What to do has become the driving force of ministry, and […]
Social justice has truly become the name of the game. Young evangelicals want to be about something, want to do something, want to make a difference…Of course, there are many good things about this activist spirit. The resurgence of care for the poor, broken and marginalized is certainly a virtue. In part, this movement toward action is a […]
In light of “The Future of Protestantism” and other discussions surrounding ecumenicism and the visible unity of the church I’d like to ask a few questions and take a stab at a few suggestions (for the sake of conversation): Was it Christ’s intent, from the beginning to have one monolithic visible institution we call the […]
As a a pastor I regularly interact with people in desperate situations, even now I agonize over a homeless family with two small children who have no where to go. They come with their stories of impossibility, tragedy, and poverty and on a shoe-string of hope ask for help. Sometimes we can help, sometimes there […]
I have always been a fan of “origins” stories, and recently there has been a glut of superhero origin stories (here, here, and here). Whether or not the movies are good, we are fascinated by the origins of our favorite characters (also by apocalyptic storylines, but that’s for another post). There is something in understanding […]
I had always thought of our loving of God and neighbor as related to God’s love the way a cue ball was related to the cue. God loved me in Christ (the moving pool cue) therefore I ought to love others (the cue ball), God’s love for me was sort of hermetically sealed off from […]