The description of the ICON service at my home church, First United Methodist Church in Pensacola, FL, states that the service is: Cutting Edge Tradition Rich Art Embracing Christ Centered This worship service just celebrated its second anniversary, and I was happy today to see that the sanctuary was largely filled. It has been both…
In Sunday School this morning we touched on 1 Corinthians 14 and worship. I again brought up the issue I see with the way that 1 Corinthians 14 is applied to modern worship. On the one hand are those who use it to prevent innovation. To them the key verse is 1 Corinthians 14:40, “Let…
The Christian Post has an article on a series of teleconferences that are available via evolutionarychristianity.com. The post uses scare quotes to set off the word “evolutionary” and in some ways I find the title troubling, just as I do the term theistic evolution. While I believe acceptance of the theory of evolution will have…
Some time ago I read a post by Arthur Sido on The Voice of One Crying Out in Suburbia titled What is Worship? and I’ve been intending to respond ever since. The problem is that the topic brings up so many different issues that it threatens to become an incredibly long blog post. Those of…
Will Rice, Discipleship Pastor at University United Methodist Church in San Antonio, is suggesting retiring the term “small group” because he thinks it is not well enough defined (HT: Dave Black Online). It is hard to know precisely what one is talking about when one says “small group.” He’s right–it is hard. He also has…
… are increasing. I don’t find this all that hard to understand. I personally have been enjoying more reading of the eastern church fathers, and have found much good material in the theology and liturgy of the Orthodox churches. Chron – Houston and Texas News reports on some churches in that area which are largely…
A little bigger than the one we were playing with! Image via Wikipedia “I know what’s wrong with it,” said six year old Steven. From the eminence of 12 years old, I was showing Steven my electric trains, most of which I had salvaged from other sets and lovingly repaired. Suddenly one of the engines…
When I wrote about different approaches in reading the Bible I left an important one out–memorization. I was reminded of this when writing an e-mail to some friends and quoting scripture. I quoted the KJV and wasn’t even aware of it until I’d completely quoted the text. So what does quoting the KJV have to…
Quote of the day: The sin of the church too often is to listen to the voice of those already in it. We let the comfortable voice of the familiar become the voice of God. Breaking free of that sin is necessary. But replacing one human voice with another is not the same as following…
So declare the Catholic bishops of Vietnam. I find it hard to see why, but that’s because I don’t think books that teach doctrine different from my own “dangerous.” I would call a couple of paragraphs in Barclay less than fully accurate, but there are some paragraphs that are positively brilliant, which is all one…
