Welcoming Visitors
Allan Bevere has some excellent notes. As someone who has visited many churches, and experienced just about all of what he describes, I can just say “Amen!” Don’t smother. Don’t ignore. Be helpful!
Allan Bevere has some excellent notes. As someone who has visited many churches, and experienced just about all of what he describes, I can just say “Amen!” Don’t smother. Don’t ignore. Be helpful!
I think there are two major errors we can make as Christians: We can fail to have a message, and we can fail to be the message. If I follow the stereotypes I would say that liberals tend to fail in the first, and conservatives in the second. But I’m afraid we all tend to…
Steve Martin lists ten books that have been written since 2003 (and pretty much none before that) on evolutionary creationism, starting with my favorite, Richard Colling’s Random Designer. The good news is that there are so many new books looking at evangelical Christianity and evolutionary theory from a positive perspective. The bad news is that…
Imagine being on a ministry committee with the responsibility for examining the plan for Jesus and his congregation (the disciples) going to Jerusalem that final week. What would you consider? What would you recommend? From my observations of the various decision making bodies in churches, I suspect there would have been a few people who…
Today my Sunday School class, The Way at First UMC Pensacola, will spend a second week discussing Process Theology after reading Bruce Epperly’s little introduction (Process Theology: Embracing Adventure with God). Last week we spent most of our time on definitions. Asked to relate Calvinism, Arminianism, Openness Theology, and Process Theology, here’s what I came…
The gentleman came to me with a sheaf of papers after a meeting at which I was speaking. “I’d like you to read this,” he said, holding them out to me. Now this was before I had started publishing, not that I haven’t had related experiences since. But even so, this gentleman wanted me to…
Thomas Nelson has release The American Patriot’s Bible: The Word of God and the Shaping of America*, which is a Bible so lousy in concept that one can dislike it without even bothering to read it. (HT: Christ my righteousness.) You’ve probably heard the cliche, “It’s a really bad book, that’s why I never read…