Church Transfer Growth: Fictional Letter to a Fellow Pastor
Dear Fellow Pastor, Thanks for reaching out about the recent developments in your ministry. Your excitement about your church’s growth is palpable. It’s definitely a “good problem” to decide how many services, classes, and/or groups you need to support this growth! As I’ve told you before, our church prays for you and your church. We regularly pray for other Bible-believing, gospel-preaching churches in our region. While we differ on...
Why Meet? A Brief Defense of Religious Meetings
“Not another meeting.” So goes the sentiment of millions of busy Americans every day. In the wake of COVID-19, “Zoom fatigue” has become a problem responsible companies must guard against. Our weariness with meetings is perhaps rivaled only by our wariness toward meetings. If we are not exhausted by them, we are certainly skeptical of their importance and benefits. Religious people have good reasons to second-guess their exhaustion or...
Specks, Logs, and the Need for Consistency
Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? (Mt. 7:1–3, ESV) I serve as an adjunct instructor in philosophy at a local community college. Of late, I’ve been teaching World Religions, a course that many students take to...
Church Revitalization: Myths and Realities
Evangelicals have been having an extensive conversation about church health and renewal for nearly fifteen years. This conversation occurs under the banner of many names, but none more common than revitalization. Search online and you’ll be inundated with titles, seminars, and words like revitalize, renew, reclaim, restore, and even resuscitate. Free Will Baptists have also joined the fray through investing in revitalization...
On Writing
I suppose I’ve been writing in a serious way for a dozen years. I’m not considering the occasional article during college or the many research papers I had to write in high school or college. After all, everyone writes—if only to make the grade. Even the shorter little pieces for a local newspaper or denominational publication were, more than anything, testing the waters: Can I write anything that’s worth reading? The jury is...
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