by Rachael Dymski Anxiety, for many, is a hard thing to reconcile with Christianity. How do we profess to be Christians, people of peace, as our stomachs twist and turn with worry? How do we raise our hands high in worship while we try not to let them shake, while inside, we are forcing ourselves to breathe in, breathe out? Anxiety is not cancer. It is not a death, a disability, a heart condition. It is not so public or... Read more
by Dave Martin Experience teaches us that if two people look at the same thing, each of them will see something different. A man and woman can be shopping, for example, and while the wife may see a beautiful new pair of shoes that would be ideal for her upcoming cruise, the husband only sees the price tag. She can see how perfectly those shoes would go with the new dress she plans to wear for the formal night of... Read more
by JD Greear I sat at a table with our four church-planters-in-residence for the year, listening to them give their final report before being sent out from our church. We had given them a head-hunting license, and they had recruited 200 of our active members to go with them. I knew I was supposed to be excited, and I was… but I was also feeling an involuntary lump form in my throat, a mixture of sadness, fear, and, quite frankly,... Read more
by Brandon Showalter No cultural division today is fraught with more confusion, bitterness, and deep pain than the current divide over the nature of marriage and human sexuality. As Rod Dreher noted two years ago in his prophetic essay “Sex After Christianity,” when sex is the subject at hand, the tack that Christians have employed in the public square has been primarily a moralistic one—an approach that has proven to be completely ineffective—and given the rapid increase of the legal enshrinement of... Read more
by Dave Martin Have you ever fired a rifle? Better yet, have you ever fired a shotgun? A shotgun cartridge contains hundreds of tiny pellets. All these pellets are packed tightly into a large casing, and, when fired, the casing opens and the pellets are propelled in multiple directions in a powerful explosion created by a large amount of gunpowder. The opening of the barrel of a shotgun is huge in order to allow all these little pellets to “spray”... Read more
By releasing a statement that they will not accept a definition of marriage based on anything other than God’s Word, regardless of the political and financial cost, Southern Baptists are shifting from a mindset of working within the political system to standing apart from it. Read more
by Ken Roach Modern parenting tends to lean heavily on either behavior—what children do—or on education—what children think. A growing number of parents, however, are most concerned with identity—who children become. I know for my wife and me, helping to form the character of our two children is far more important than making sure they follow a list of rules. So, when my pastor suggested a few years ago that parents could be guided by the ancient list of “seven... Read more
by Brian Miller Civilizations rise and fall. The barbarians have been at the gates many times before at Rome, Constantinople, Vienna, and revolutionary Paris. The secular powers have not always survived these crises, but the Church has outlived them all. This should be of comfort to those of us fretting about the recent Pew study on religion. Christians are on the decline and “Nones” are on the rise. The effects of this can be seen everywhere in the culture around... Read more
Nights of prayer and worship are often replaced with Bingo and fund raisers. We’re in a hurry to burn through a sermon, scurry through worship, and head to the nearest restaurant. This is a sure sign of a dying church. Read more
Paul may have been the most intense man who ever lived. He said and believed that “to live is Christ and to die is gain,” and he proved he meant it every day. He was fearless. Shipwrecked thrice, snake bit, stoned and left for dead, flogged, imprisoned numerous times, and finally decapitated by Nero, Paul is the most convicting person I have ever written about. Read more
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