Recently the topic of risk and danger has come up in several discussions of Christian Ministry. Shauna Hyde, who I interviewed along with Chris Surber, has spent the night in tent town with homeless folks and earned the informal title “vicar of tent town.” People have told her she’s crazy. But she manages to live…
Two paragraphs from Rendering unto Caesar: The most obvious conflict with the fusion of Christian and American identity is that it denies the universal nature of the Kingdom of God. When our allegiances are too strongly aligned with any kingdom of this world, be it the relatively benevolent kingdom of America or a malevolent kingdom…
Tonight in our Tuesday night hangout series, I will be interviewing Christopher J. Freet, author of the newly released book A New Look at Hospitality as a Key to Missions in the Areopagus Critical Christian Issues series regarding the topic of hospitality. We are open to audience questions. You can view this event on the…
Via Allan Bevere I located this interview with Scot McKnight, in which McKnight makes a number of interesting statements. The one that caught my attention most was: … A proper kingdom theology leads people to the middle of the church, not away from it. So it makes a difference when church is on the decline…
If you don’t know I own a publishing company (Energion Publications) by now, I’d be pretty surprised. It’s not as though I don’t talk about it regularly. One of the things I find interesting about blogging is to discover which blog posts actually catch people’s attention. There are times when I have put my heart…
I appreciate Dave’s comments today on giving money when approached by family or friends to give money for a mission trip. He suggests asking that the recipient match dollor-for-dollar from their own money. I had the policy, when I was leading such trips, that we never gave “full ride” scholarships. When someone donated money to…
This question, which I’ve written about before, was brought to my attention again both through reading and through some conversations. As an ex-Seventh-day Adventist, I’m often asked whether I believe my former denomination is truly Christian, or whether it is some sort of cult. Ignoring what I consider the hopeless muddle in the usage of…
I burden my post with a somewhat long title, but it could be longer. The question is where do I put my focus when I respond to what is going on today. Now many readers are going to make assumptions as to what my beliefs are on the issues I use as examples, but I’m…
From Seven Marks of a New Testament Church by David Alan Black, p. 6: In the fourth place, evangelism in the New Testament was always characterized by genuine concern for the social needs of the lost. When I was in seminary, a good deal of distrust existed between those who emphasized personal salvation in evangelism…
… according to me, of course! I’m sitting here doing page layout on My Life Story by Becky Lynn Black. As I was doing that, I read small portions. I don’t read much while I’m doing page layout. What the text says is less important than how it will look, so my brain is in…