This book surfaces pastoral practices and echoes of the Fruit of the Spirit that can shape both our personal relationships and our ministerial lives.
Lazy Conclusions about Decline Aren’t Helpful
Lazy conclusions about the causes of church decline aren’t helpful. A more thoughtful approach would be to go back to the basic idea of building a healthy church and then constantly renewing it.
Pomp and Circumstance on the Way to the Cross
Remember Christ’s robe this graduation season. Help the grad in your life to remember them, too.
Wait, What?? Modern Lessons from a Biblical Communication Breakdown
Both groups are being faithful to the Lord; they just can’t get along with each other. We must learn how to handle the conflicts that happen with each other so we can fight the real enemy together.
Living and Loving Out of Good News
If we truly believe that the Gospel of Jesus is good news, then it only makes sense that we would orient our lives in such a way as to see the world and others through this lens.
Discipleship in an Anxious World (Mark 4:35-41)
Peace is not pretending everything is fine. Peace is knowing who is in the boat and learning how to sit down while the waves are still loud.
Why We Need Trauma-Responsive Care in Chaplaincy
As chaplains, we cannot be merely informed about trauma; we must be trauma-responsive.
When There Are No Words
Instead of minimizing or dismissing the emotions one carries in a moment of trauma, lament offers a space to directly name the hurt of the painful moment.
Trauma Leaves Its Scars
To say that trauma and traumatic experiences are hard is an understatement, because they are indescribable. Even the journey of recovery is complicated.
Becoming an Intergenerational Learner
Developing an intergenerational spirit of learning is a skill we develop throughout our lives. This means beginning to see the gifts that every age group—older and younger—has to offer to my life and the life of my church.
The Important Role of Small Churches in Ministry Preparation
We frequently view these smaller churches as merely being recipients of help. Instead, they are partners that often serve as incubators for future ministers and lay ministers of all-sized churches.
Cheap Grace, Acts 7
If, as a church today, we are living out a comfortable and easy Christianity—if the practice of our faith presents us with no challenge or sacrifice, no discomfort or opposition—perhaps it is because the grace we are living by is a cheap grace.
Reframing Agape Love
What if Paul is wanting us to understand not how to love better, but instead what God’s love for us is like? What if this love from God is what Paul actually meant when he said at the end of the 1 Corinthians 12, “And yet I will show you the most excellent way?”
Leadership Practices: Prayer
Such a path of discovery sits at odds with usual practice. Congregational leaders may be tempted to play out a hunch, try what some other church has done, or impose their own will on a congregation. Yet Paul’s prayer leads contemporary leaders to a different kind of practice.
The Every Sunday Ask
The Holy Spirit will connect us to non-believers. May God bless us as we seek to draw them, invite them, call them into a relationship with Jesus.
The Question I Was Asking Wrong
I did what most people do when they first encounter the Enneagram: I started asking everyone around me things like “Do you do this?” People would look at me a little sideways, and I could not figure out why my question was not landing.
Learning a New Language
I came to deeply admire and respect the faith of my brothers and sisters in Christ in Argentina. We didn’t always agree on theological points of view or ministerial practice but I loved and admired their profound faith and faithfulness to the way of Jesus.
A Call for Greater Consideration of Small and Rural Churches
When a small church closes, a community loses both its anchor and the energy generated when it responds to local needs.
Learning from What I Don’t Know
I have questions about the story in John 8 about the woman caught in adultry. I want to know what Jesus wrote when they were trying to trap him between loving people and keeping God’s Word.
Christianity on the Move, Acts 8
Individually, we are only a grain of salt, and a grain of salt by itself is not very useful. It doesn't season anything. It doesn't preserve anything. Salt must be used in handfuls to fulfill its function. The church is the salt of the earth as a community, and therefore, it must preach the gospel as a community.