This was triggered by Ed Brayton’s answers to the short ID quiz, and particularly by the first question. 1. On a scale of 0 (diehard disbeliever) to 10 (firm believer), how would you rate your level of belief in Intelligent Design? (Minimal Definition of Intelligent Design: The idea that certain features of the universe and…
The Christian Post has a portion of an interview with John Piper in response to the question: Why was it right for God to slaughter women and children in the Old Testament? How can that ever be right? And the first sentence of his answer is the title of this post. I can hardly tell…
Commenter David Reed e-mailed me a copy of his Rhetorical Outline of the Epistolary Sermon to the Hebrews. I’m embedding it here, trying out a new plugin. Besides your thoughts on the outline itself, I’d like your thoughts on how well embedding works. In the next couple of days I will comment on this outline…
When I first started attending a United Methodist church, and the leadership figured out what my background was, I was soon invited to teach various classes around the church. I was fairly pleased with this, as I love to talkteach, and it gave me plenty of opportunities. My approach was to search for ever newer…
I’ve been meaning to post this for a few days, but it’s been busy, as you can tell from my low level of blogging. Geoffrey Lentz is the associate pastor of First United Methodist Church of Pensacola, and a former student of mine. In fact, I met Geoffrey in the first class I taught for…
I was reading this article on the reasons people leave, titled 5 Rather Startling Reasons People Leave Your Church, and while it is by no means the worst offender, it reminded me of an interesting characteristic of church growth/health books and articles. The problem is this: We, as leaders in the church, tend to assume…