Here is a fictional conversation between two guys who go to church together. Norm: George, you and I have been attending church together for a couple of years, and I’ve never found out what you do. George: Well, Norm, I guess you’d say that my work in life is to be an evangelist. I want […]
Good Work
I’m doing a teaching series on work. I’m challenging us to think theologically about the work we do. From what I can tell, most Christians have a hard time connecting what they do during the day to what gets talked about on Sunday morning in most churches. I think every follower of Jesus should have […]
September 28, 2007 by 8 Comments
Good to be Late?
As a follow up to the Late for Church? post, I’m going to share with you a story someone sent to me today. It seems that sometimes it is good to be late.
August 30, 2007 by 3 Comments
God is Real
Last night we took the training wheels off of Elijah’s bicycle. It was past time. I had already raised them so high that they only touched when he rounded corners in our neighborhood. As we were taking them off, I told him that once they came off they weren’t going back on. This was a […]
August 21, 2007 by 12 Comments
Without Disagreement, Nothing Can Be Learned
I’ve had the tag line “Without disagreement, nothing can be learned” on my blog for quite a while now. I can’t remember where it came from but I like it, even though I don’t think a blog is generally a good place to work through disagreement. You can say something disagreeable on a blog. You […]
April 19, 2007 by 10 Comments
What is Your Core Message?
Here is a great article from Tom Bandy. Imagine. It is almost 11:00 on Friday night when the phone rings. Your neighbor is calling in a panic. He is not particularly religious, but he knows that you go to church regularly. In a rush of words he tells you that his daughter is being held […]
April 10, 2007 by 8 Comments
Coping with Pluralism
I grew up west Texas, surrounded by fields of cotton and oil. In my little hometown, I can’t remember encountering anyone who would claim an alternative religion to Christianity. Some were good, some were bad, some were barely, but just about everyone I knew claimed Christianity as their religion. Now, things couldn’t be more different. […]
March 2, 2007 by 13 Comments
World Religions: Three Possibilities
I can’t help but come back to the world religions discussion. If you’re joining us late you can find previous posts here, here, and here. While I haven’t done a lot of in-depth research on specific world religions–I’ve noodled around in books about Buddhism and I’ve listened to an audio book about Islam–I have spent […]
February 27, 2007 by 36 Comments
It’s All Relative
Speaking of world religions . . . A handful of years ago, I did a sermon in Bellingham where I dealt with the problem of the world religions and the exclusive claims of Christianity. My thinking was pretty fuzzy and I asked lots of questions that I didn’t know the answer to. But I did […]
February 26, 2007 by 13 Comments
Christianity and Buddhism
Here’s a link to an interesting post from Tim Geoffrion that is a good follow up to yesterday’s post. (HT:EV) One thing that struck me from my post and the comments that have followed so far is the emphasis that I put on intellectual honesty or epistemology. This is certainly a western way of framing […]
February 22, 2007 by 16 Comments
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons