I Love Jesus, Not Sure about the Church

Fairly recent research says America may have more self-declared Christians outside the church than in it. I get that, for a multitude of reasons, and level of commitment certainly is one. Loving Jesus can be nice yet undemanding. Church involvement takes loving Jesus to a more involved level. Jesus attracts people, sometimes churches do not. But I came across a stat that troubles me. George Barna’s research, written about in “Faith and Christianity” on March 30, 2017, went a bit deeper…

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Cancel Culture

“Cancel Culture” has become common term lately, regarding Civil War monuments, the Founding Fathers who owned slaves, or the comments and actions that others or companies make that we disagree with. Sometimes strongly. So, we boycott them. We try to eliminate them from public discourse. Dictionary.com defines it as when people “are said to be canceled after it has been discovered that they have done something offensive. It involves calling out the bad behavior, boycotting their work (such as by not watching their movies or listening to their music), and trying to take away their public platform and power. This is often done … on social media.”

Yes, this touches politics, but not here. Let’s focus on how we, as followers of Jesus…

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Waiters and Spirituality

We navigate a toxic world of easily offended people that includes those who seem to delight in offending and demeaning others. A recent Facebook discussion on this came up with a helpful metaphor on how to tone down some of the discord. Most of us, myself included, tend to think we’re correct and others would benefit by accepting our beliefs and values. So we share them, they resist, and we up the game. We get more strong and loud, they get more resistant, emotions grow and insults fly. Not good, and relationships often fracture. Perhaps we err by…

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Found in Translation

Death has invaded my thoughts of late. One of my best friends passed last year from brain cancer. Several friends have died from COVID. And earlier today, our church’s home group met at the home of a member: he inside the family room, we outside on the patio with an open window between. Multiple cancers are about to take him home. We expressed our appreciation of him, of the gifts he brought, we sang a song, and prayed. Out of the blue, I remembered…

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Complexity's Paradox

After four years of spiritual searching and an inability to make needed changes on my own, I surrendered control of my life to the only being worthy of it. I certainly didn’t meet that standard. The ride since has been wild. I’ve pastored churches and sinned and grown, written books and sinned and grown, taught at Christian universities and high schools and sinned and grown, retired from full time work and sinned and grown. And the further I travel…

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