We’re finished with another workshop. We had a great time of worship at Garnett this morning. I really enjoyed hearing Bruce Marchiano tell his story on Thursday night. He had some great facial expressions and sound effects. On Friday night, Randy Harris and Jerry Taylor demonstrated once again why they’re two of the best preachers […]
2007 Tulsa Workshop
The Tulsa Workshop is only a few days away. Terry Rush and the folks at the Memorial Drive Church of Christ have put together a great program. I’m honored to be a part of it. I’ll be teaching a couple of classes, one on Thursday and one on Saturday. Usually Memorial and Garnett alternate years […]
March 20, 2007 by 9 Comments
Movies and Books
I’ve seen a couple of good movies in the last week: “Zodiac” and “Amazing Grace.” Two very different movies but both are well made and worth watching. A theme common to both movies is obsession and the toll it takes on those committed to a cause. Our staff is reading Slaves, Women and Homosexuals: Exploring […]
March 9, 2007 by 7 Comments
New Podcast: Episode One
I’m starting up a new podcast here at this blog. I’ll be posting talks that I give at other events, conversations that I have with interesting people, and thoughts that might be better heard than read. The weekly teachings I do at Garnett will continue to be found at the Garnett Podcast. Eventually, this podcast […]
March 7, 2007 by 1 Comment
Lent Busters
Sweet-Tarts jelly beans are the best jelly beans ever. You can only find them around Easter and–as it seems to be the case here in Tulsa–at Walgreens. The last two seasons of Lent I’ve tried to give up sugar. Both times these little beans of sweet jelly coated with a tart outer shell have shipwrecked […]
March 5, 2007 by 16 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
The World’s Religions
I’ve been teaching the High School class on Wednesday nights for the past couple of months. We’ve been playing “stump the preacher.” On the first night, they wrote down their questions that they’d love to see me tackle and I promised to give some straight answers. The questions ranged from make-me-proud smart alecky to dead […]
February 21, 2007 by 25 Comments
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons