Is this official e-mail lingo? How many times have you received a note, complete in itself, but somehow felt you should acknowledge the note or say “thanks”? Is there anything that tells those to whom we write that they don’t need to respond so we don’t have to go around and around? I suggest we use NNTR at the bottom of letters like this: “no need to respond.” Read more
For thirty years or so, on every day off, I have put on either sweat pants or shorts. It is Friday, Black Friday to be exact, and this morning I got up and said to myself, “I’m wondering what it would be like to wear jeans all day long.” So, I put on my new jeans. Yesterday, for Thanksgiving, I wore these new jeans and they felt comfortable all day long. So, today I put them on again and now... Read more
The question Telford Work poses in chp 3 of his book Ain’t Too Proud to Beg is the question of how Christians are to understand this prayer request: “May your kingdom come!” And his chp admirably sketches how Christians have related to the State. |inline Read more
How then can we turn from a consumerist church to become a race-less and class-less church? This practical question drives chp 6 of Paul Metzger’s Consuming Jesus. There has been lots of theology and lots of abstraction so far, and in this chp he gets down closer to some brass tacks of reality. |inline Read more
Not all the turkeys of this world have been pardoned … and we will be eating one that hasn’t been pardoned. |inline Read more
“Who are you, Lord, and what are you up to?” is the question Andrew Purves, in the 2d chp of his book The Crucifixion of Ministry, asks. The minister, to avoid thinking it is all dependent upon him or her and to avoid burnout and to find the grace of God at work, needs to be asking this question. |inline Read more
How then do evangelical Christians begin to take steps to reorder the church so that it becomes less a consumeristic society and more of a race-less and class-less community around Jesus? This is the question he seeks to answer in chp 5 of Consuming Jesus. Here’s my question for you: |inline Read more
Nov 30 and Dec 1, at Northern Seminary here in the suburbs of Chicago, The Ancient Evangelical Future Conference and the Grow Center are hosting an event dedicated to the primacy of the biblical narrative. There will be some papers — promised to be both academic and pastorally practical — by Kevin Vanhoozer, yours truly, and Edith Humphreys along with responses by both pastors and professors. My piece, called “Stories of the Story,” will look at how we are taught... Read more
Andrew Purves, in The Crucifixion of Ministry, contends there are two crucifixions in ministry: the first one about seven years in and the next one a long, steady dying to self and to Christ so that “our” ministry becomes “his” ministry. |inline Read more
Attending the Society of Biblical Literature in San Diego isn’t the worst of gigs, but it was surely no vacation. A brief rundown and then some thoughts on the books. |inline Read more
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